Ayame's Ninja Way
by Jahzzei
Summary: This is the story of a girl named Ayame. She was found unconscious and injured by a shinobi of the Leaf Village and brought in for treatment. When she wakes up, she has no memories of who she was or where she came from.
1. Chapter 1

"Where am I?" was the first thought that entered her mind as she opened her eyes. The bright lights and white surroundings hurt her eyes a bit. As things came into focus she noticed a guy with grey hair and some sort of mask looking thing that covered most of his face reading a book in a chair next to the bed she was in. She didn't remember having come to this place, wherever it was.

"Hey, you're awake," the guy said as he looked up from his book as she sat up in the bed. She looked him over and decided she definitely didn't know this guy. His spiky grey hair, headband that was covering one of his eyes and mask that covered just about everything else didn't seem even vaguely familiar. All she could see of his face was one eye and an ear, which seemed quite odd to her. That brought her back to her earlier question; where was she?

"Where am I?" she asked the boy.

"In the hospital," he replied.

She cocked her head to the side a bit in confusion, that wasn't the answer she had expected. She didn't remember getting hurt or sick and needing to come to the hospital. Come to think of it, she really couldn't remember much of anything, which was starting to concern her. "The hospital? How did I get here?" she asked him. He put his book down as a man in a white coat walked into the room. "You're awake!" he said.

She sighed, that had already been established. "Why am I here?" she asked either of the guys in the room. The man in the white coat pointed to the right side of her head. "You were found unconscious outside the village with an injury to your head," he explained. She put her hand up to the right side of her hand and felt a shooting pain when her hand touched it. She could feel that her head was bandaged up and wondered how long she had been here. She looked back at the guy with the grey hair and back to the guy in the white coat, who she was guessing was a doctor. Why couldn't she remember anything?

"Now that your questions have been answered," the grey haired boy started, "I've got a few questions for you. Who are you?" She opened her mouth to respond but stopped when she couldn't remember who she was. She couldn't remember where she was from, how old she was, or even what her name was. "I…" she said as she looked down at her hands, "I don't know." She felt rather silly saying she didn't know who she was, but she really had no idea. Her heart was racing as fear started to rise in her. How could she not know even her name? This was bad.

"What about a name? Do you know your name?" the grey haired boy asked. She shook her head no as she took a deep breath hoping to calm her heart rate down. "Well, you did injure your head. Perhaps that made you lose your memory," he said and looked to the doctor. "Will that get better?" he asked the doctor who just shrugged. Perhaps he wasn't a doctor after all. That seemed like something she thought a doctor should have the answer to. She should ask to see a real doctor, she thought to herself.

"It's tough to tell," the man in the white coat said. "Sometimes people with amnesia get their memory back, sometimes they don't. I should go get the Hokage, he will want to know she is awake," he said and walked out of the room.

"What's a Hokage?" she asked and watched the man walk out of the room. After the door had shut she turned back to the guy with the grey hair. "Who are you? Why are you here with me? Do I know you?" she asked him before he was able to answer her question about what a Hokage was. He had a rather uninterested look to him and she guessed she didn't know him; otherwise he would be more upset that she didn't know who she was. She then remembered that he had also asked her just moments earlier who she was, which definitely meant he didn't know her. Oh well, the question had already come out.

He sighed before responding to her questions. "My name is Kakashi, and no, I don't know you," he started. She felt her heart drop at that, even though she had already figured out that he didn't know her. "I'm the one that found you outside the village passed out and bleeding from your head. I brought you here to the hospital, it didn't seem as though you would have lived if I had just left you there," he said in a way that made it seem like it had been a chore for him to bring her here. Before she could ask why he was still with her he answered her question. "I was worried about you, so I've been checking on you since I brought you here a few days ago. And, it's nice and quiet in here so I can read," he finished.

Her mind was racing as she was trying to remember anything about herself. She'd be happy with even the most insignificant memory. Her mind wandered back to her earlier question. "What's a Hokage? And why did that man have to get it?" she asked the boy named Kakashi. Was it some sort of doctor? Maybe it would know if she'd get her memory back.

"The Hokage is the leader of this village," Kakashi stated. "He will want to know you're awake because this village isn't exactly welcoming to outsiders. He will be the one to decide what to do with you."

None of this was making a whole lot of sense to her. Why wouldn't this village be welcoming to her? She wasn't a bad person, that she knew despite having no memories of who she was. She wasn't sure how to prove she was a good person to this Hokage though, she had no defense for her case unless her memory came back. She could feel tears welling in her eyes from frustration. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Perhaps if she could just calm herself down…

"It'll be ok," Kakashi said. "The Hokage is a compassionate man. Getting worked up won't help you feel better." She sighed and put her hand to the bandage on her head. Perhaps once that had healed she would regain her memory. She looked at Kakashi and forced a smile. Despite the uninterested look on his face, it seemed he had taken some sort of interest in her. Why else would he still be here with her? He was actually rather handsome, she thought as she looked at him. She wasn't sure why she thought so, most of his face was covered. Still, there was something about him that was kind of cute. Just then, she heard to door to the room open and Kakashi stood up.

She turned her head to look and see who was entering. The doctor was holding the door open for an older man dressed in a floor length cape like cloak and hat. "You're looking much better," the man said. She looked at him, not sure what to say. She guessed this was the Hokage from the way Kakashi stood up when the man entered the room. "I hear you've lost your memory," the man said and she nodded. "Well, that's no good. I'm not entirely surprised though, that was quite the injury you had when Kakashi brought you here. You're lucky he found you. Do you have a name?" the man asked and she shook her head. "Well, you'll need a name," he said and looked thoughtful for a moment. "What about Ayame?" he asked her.

"Uh, sure. That's fine," she said. He smiled at her in a way that made her feel like things were going to turn out ok. He definitely wasn't as intimidating as she was afraid he was going to be. In fact, he seemed very kind and like somebody she could trust. She smiled back at him. He looked to the doctor, "Do we know how old she is?"

"We've guessed she's around 17," the doctor responded.

The Hokage nodded and looked to Kakashi. "You are 20, aren't you Kakashi? You two are close in age, so why don't you watch out for her," he said. Before Kakashi could say anything the Hokage added, "This is a mission, you can't refuse. You brought her here, so you are responsible for her. I also know that you have an extra room and bed for her at your place." The Hokage looked back to Ayame. "I would like to see you later. After you are dressed, Kakashi will bring you to my office," he said. With that, he turned around and walked out of room. The doctor set some folded up clothes and a pair of shoes on the foot of the bed and walked out of the room too.

"Well, I guess that's that," she heard Kakashi say. "Get dressed and meet me out in the hallway." With that, he walked out of the room and shut the door behind him. She swung her legs over the edge the bed and put her feet down on the cold floor. Her mind was reeling as she tried to take in everything. Her name was now Ayame, she was 17, she was going to live with Kakashi who didn't seem super thrilled with the idea, and she still had no idea where she was. She took off the gown she was in and put on the khaki colored pants and loose black top that she was given. She took the shoes off the bed and then put those on too. There was a sink and a mirror to her right, so she walked over to that. She looked in the mirror at herself and laughed. She was a mess. Her long black hair was sticking out everywhere, her big green eyes looked tired, and she had a bandage that covered most of her forehead. At least the clothes she was given fit well enough. She turned on the water in the sink and splashed some cold water on her face which made her feel a bit better. She found a rubber band in a cabinet and pulled her hair back into a ponytail and walked out of the room.

When Kakashi saw that she had come out of the room he started walking off without saying anything, so she followed. "So, where am I? I mean, what village am I in?" she asked him. Without looking at her he responded, "You're in the Leaf Village." The name of the village didn't sound familiar to her. That wasn't much of a surprise though. She followed him down the hallway, down some stairs, and out of the building. Looking around, the village seemed happy and peaceful from what she could see. There were children running around, people talking and laughing and shops open for business. She could smell food and her stomach rumbled loudly. "Are you hungry?" Kakashi asked her upon hearing her stomach grumbling.

"I guess I am," she answered. She still didn't know how long she had been in the hospital, but she's guessing it was a few days at least. Since she was unconscious during that time, she hadn't been eating. They passed a ramen stand that smelled delicious and her stomach grumbled again even louder. Kakashi stopped and went to the stand. She followed him and he ordered some pork ramen. The man working at the stand smiled and nodded. "You should eat before we go see the Hokage," Kakashi said. Kakashi handed the man at the stand some money and took the bowl of ramen. He handed Ayame the bowl and some chopsticks. She sat down on the stool and dug into the ramen. "Thank you," she said to Kakashi when she had finished. She was still hungry, but she figured they should be on their way to see the Hokage. She said thank you to the cook and they were back on their way to see the Hokage.

They come to a large building and went inside. They arrived at a room and Kakashi pointed to the door. "This is his office. You should go in, I'll wait here," Kakashi said. She walked into the room and saw the Hokage sitting at his desk. He stopped his work when she walked in and looked up. "I didn't introduce myself to you earlier," he said. "I am the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi. Just so you are aware, we do not usually take in strangers in the Leaf Village out of caution that they might be a spy from another village," he continued.

"I am not a spy!" she exclaimed. The Third Hokage sighed and looked at her with understanding eyes. "We do not know that, so you will be treated accordingly," he said. "We do know, however, that you lost your memory to the point of not even being able to remember your name or age. You will be under the surveillance of Kakashi as we wait to see if your memory comes back. He is a very capable shinobi," he continued. A ninja? She probably could have figured that out from the way that Kakashi was dressed. He must have guessed by the expression on her face that she hadn't realized that Kakashi was a ninja. "You are in the Hidden Leaf Village, we have many fine shinobi here that protect our village and the Land of Fire," he explained. She nodded understanding that would mean that the Hokage sitting in front of her must be a very powerful shinobi.

The Hokage pulled out what looked like a coin purse from a drawer in his desk and set it near the edge of the desk. "This is for you. Since you don't have any belongings, you will need to buy clothes and other necessities. If your memory returns, even if it's only little bits, you are to notify me immediately. I have also set up a tutor of sorts for you. If you are going to be here, you are going to learn to be a useful member of society. I'll give the details to Kakashi, so send him in here. You can wait outside my office for him," he finished. Ayame nodded, took the coin purse, and left the office.

"He wants to talk to you," she told Kakashi. He walked into the room and closed the door behind him. She leaned up against the wall and closed her eyes. After talking with the Hokage, she understood that she was an outsider and was considered a threat to the village in that she may be a spy. She wasn't sure how to prove that she wasn't a spy. She was curious about the tutor that he had mentioned. What kind of tutor? Would she be learning how to be a ninja? That would be pretty cool, she thought. Or perhaps the tutor would be trying to get her memory back. What if her memory never came back? What would she do then?

She decided she shouldn't worry about that right now. It wasn't helping her remember anything about who she was, it was only causing her stress. Maybe she didn't want to remember anyway. Whatever or whoever had given her that head injury couldn't have been good. Maybe forgetting everything and getting to start a new life was a good thing. She'd have to work hard to prove to Kakashi and the Hokage that she was good and earn their trust. That seemed like a monumental task right now, she was sure that others would be suspicious of all of her actions. There were probably going to be more than just Kakashi watching her. The door from the Hokage's office opened and she watched Kakashi walk out. "Looks like I'm stuck with you for a while," he said and started to walk towards the exit of the building. She quickly followed him hoping that she wouldn't be too much of a burden to him. "The Hokage told me that he gave you some money to get you some essential supplies. Let's do that right now," Kakashi said and she nodded.

When they got outside she could see that the sun was starting to set. The sky was turning a lovely pink and orange color. "We should hurry before the shops start closing down," he said to her. She smiled and nodded. They walked into a clothing shop and Kakashi immediately leaned up against a wall and looked bored out of his mind. She decided that was just his default expression. A girl working at the shop came and asked her if she needed help with anything so Ayame explained to her that she was looking for a new wardrobe. The girl grinned and started pulling all sorts of clothes and throwing them into the changing room for her. After trying on all of the clothes she decided on a pair of black shorts, a short deep purple skirt, a black top that was tighter fitting than the one she was wearing currently, a forest green vest, a navy tank top, and a grey sweatshirt. That combined with what she was currently wearing seemed like a good amount of clothing. She figured that she was probably good on shoes, these open toed shoes seemed to be very sturdy shoes. She paid for the clothes and walked back to Kakashi. "Where to next?" she asked.

"Well, you will probably need other things. Shampoo, a toothbrush… That kind of stuff. Let's go to a shop where you can get all of that," he said. She followed him to another store and went inside. She found basic toiletries and things she felt she would need. She bought those and the two left the shop; she even have some money to spare. Perhaps she should buy Kakashi dinner to pay him back for buying her food earlier.

"Let's go home," he said before she was able to offer to buy him dinner. "I've got plenty of food there, and I'm sure you've had a long day."

"Okay," she said. Perhaps another night, she thought to herself. "I'm sorry you're kinda stuck with me..." she said and he just shrugged. He was not an easy person to read. Hopefully she got used to him and figured out how to read his feelings a little better. She didn't really feel like talking, her brain was exhausted from everything she had absorbed that day, so they walked in silence for a while.

"I had already expected to be stuck with you," he said suddenly and broke the silence. "I knew that when I found you and decided to bring you back to the village for treatment that you would either be completely rejected for not being from the village, or that you would have to be watched until it was decided whether you were trustworthy."

She tried to hide her smile, but she knew it wasn't working. His comments seemed pretty close to him admitting that he didn't mind having to watch over her. He had a nice side after all. He noticed her smiling, which only made her smile widen. "Thank you," she told him. She couldn't quite tell, but she was pretty sure by the expression in his eye, that he was smiling underneath that mask.

They arrived at a small house and Kakashi pulled a key out of his pocket. He opened the door and walked in. She followed him in and looked around. There wasn't much to the place. There was a small couch in what she decided must have been the living room and a kitchen with a table and a few chairs. He pointed to a hallway. "Through there is the bathroom and two bedrooms. Your room will be the one at the very end of the hall. Get whatever you want to eat from the kitchen. I think I'm going to call it a night," he said as he walked towards the hall to his room. She set her purchases down on the kitchen counter and looked around. She grabbed a large apple off the counter and started eating as she looked to see what else he had to eat. She found bread, meat and cheese to make herself a sandwich.

After she had eaten her fill of food, she grabbed her stuff and walked towards where he said her room was. She walked past a room with the door shut, that must be Kakashi's room, past the bathroom, and to the room at the end of the hall. She flipped on the light and looked the room over. There was a bed against the wall, a dresser, and a bare desk. She dropped her belongings on the floor and plopped down on top of the bed. She was exhausted and her head was throbbing. Almost instantly, she fell into a deep sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

When Ayame woke up her head was throbbing. Whatever had happened to her sure took a toll on her. She noticed that the lights had been turned out and that she now had a blanket on her. She was pretty sure she passed out before turning off the lights or finding a blanket. Kakashi must have noticed and done those two things for her. She sat up in bed and tried again to remember something, anything really, about herself. Yet again, nothing came to her. All she could remember were the events that had happened between when she had woken up in the hospital until she had fallen asleep last night.

She looked out through the window and could see daylight. She hoped she hadn't overslept. She got out of bed and walked out of the room. She could hear some noise coming from the kitchen area, so she walked in that direction. Sure enough, he was in the kitchen. He appeared to be washing his hands in the sink. "Good morning," she said to him. He looked at her, grabbed an apple off the counter, and tossed it to her. "You should eat and get ready to leave. I have some work to do and I've got to take you somewhere first," he said. She caught the apple with one hand and nodded. She was curious where he was going to be taking her.

Instead of asking, she just did what he had asked of her. She took a bite of the apple and turned to walk to her room to get her shampoo and soap that she had bought. She grabbed those, along with a toothbrush and toothpaste and went to the bathroom. Kakashi had already put a towel in the bathroom for her; it was folded nicely on the counter next to the sink. As she finished the apple she looked in the mirror at herself. She may have as well been looking at a stranger. There was no recognition as she looked at her reflection. Her long black hair was thick and unruly. Her eyes were big and bright green; less tired looking than they had been yesterday. Her skin had a pinkish tone to it and she wasn't very tall, maybe 5'4" or 5'5". She must look rather short next to Kakashi; he was on the taller side.

She finished her apple and threw the core away in a small trash can next to the toilet. She pulled the bandage off her forehead and looked at the large gash that went across most of her forehead. She was glad she had bangs that would cover a lot of the wound up. There was also a rather tender spot above her right ear that felt as though it must have a gnarly bruise. Not really wanting to look at the wound any longer, she turned the water to the shower on. She undressed and stepped into the warm stream of water. The warm water felt nice as it ran over her body. As she washer her hair and body, she desperately tried to recall any memory from her life before she ended up in the hospital. Nothing was coming, however.

After deciding that she should probably get out of the shower, she turned off the water and stepped out. She grabbed the towel and dried off her hair as best she could and then wrapped the towel around herself. She walked out of the bathroom right as Kakashi stepped into the hallway. He looked at her covered in the towel and stopped for a moment. His face turned slightly red and he quickly walked into his room. She grinned at that, seeing her in the towel had embarrassed him. Everything was covered; she had nothing to worry about. It was amusing to her all the same.

She walked into her room and shut the door behind her. She let the towel drop to the floor and as she decided what to wear. She decided that the black top and purple skirt she had bought the day before would be good. She threw on the clothes and put her hair back into a ponytail. She walked back out of the room ready to go to wherever Kakashi was taking her to.

When he saw her walk out of the room Kakashi walked to the front door and exited the house. She quickly followed and shut the front door behind her. As they walked toward their destination Ayame became more frustrated with the fact that she couldn't remember anything. She didn't understand how she could forget something like her name. Or how she couldn't recognize her reflection in a mirror. Not only did she not know who she was, she was in a village where nobody knew who she was and even saw her as a threat. She tried to push those thoughts out of her mind and told herself she had to focus on what was happening at that present moment, but it wasn't working.

"Kakashi!" she heard a loud voice yell, pulling her out of her thoughts. Kakashi kept walking on, but she stopped long enough to figure out who had yelled his name. It was a guy who looked about the age of Kakashi wearing a funny looking green tank top and pants, had shiny black hair, and eyebrows that looked like fuzzy black caterpillars. Kakashi noticed that she had stopped and sighed before turning back towards her. "Come on Ayame, we need to go," he said to her.

Before they were able to start walking off again, the guy in green ran up to Kakashi. "Kakashi! You have been too anti-social lately. Come and eat with us!" he said with a big cheesy grin and pointed to a table in the little restaurant. She followed his point and saw a guy with short black hair and a goatee, and a girl with long black hair and big red eyes. They looked like a cute couple, Ayame thought.

"No, Guy," Kakashi said.

"Come on, my eternal rival! You don't have to stay long," the guy said.

Ayame cocked her head to the side a little at the mention of the word rival. This guy looked like a total goofball and not somebody that could hold a candle to Kakashi, not that she knew Kakashi's abilities. The guy looked at her and then back to Kakashi. "Oh, you have a new friend! What's her name? You have to come introduce her to Asuma, Kurenai and me!"

Before waiting for Kakashi to answer the guy turned to her with that big cheesy smile. "I am Might Guy!" he said in a loud voice that made her cringe on the inside. "Any friend of Kakashi's is a friend of mine!" he said. She smiled back at him, feeling a bit overwhelmed.

"That is Ayame," Kakashi said. "I've got to take her to Intel, so we need to get going," he continued. Guy got a puzzled look on his face, but Kakashi didn't stick around to answer any more questions. "Nice to meet you," Ayame said as she walked on following Kakashi.

"Those are your friends?" she asked once they were out of ear reach of Guy. Kakashi just shrugged. "What's Intel? That's where you're taking me?" she asked him.

"People there just have a few questions for you," he said. "Don't worry," he said in a calm voice. He must have noticed the look on her face, a combination of worry and frustration. "They already know you have no memory. They might seem kinda scary, but they won't hurt you. I promise," he assured her. She hoped he was telling the truth and not just saying that to make her less worried. She didn't like the idea of being asked questions when she still had so many questions herself. She wouldn't have any answers for them and she hoped these people would believe her when she wasn't able to answer their questions.

They arrived at a large building and Kakashi walked in. Ayame followed him in and felt her heart rate spike as her nerves went haywire. She followed him until he stopped outside a room. "I'll walk you in there and introduce you. Don't be scared or nervous, you'll be okay. After you're done here, you'll be able to leave. You remember how to get back to my place, right? I have a mission I have to go on and I probably won't be back until late tonight," he said.

"Yeah, I think I can figure it out," she responded, trying to sound confident. She didn't like how obvious it was how that she was so nervous and was trying to keep it under control. With that he pushed the door open and walked in. She followed him in and saw a man with a blonde ponytail and green eyes standing in the middle of the room. He looked like a serious man.

"You must be Ayame," the man said. "I'm Inoichi. I've got a quick way to figure out who you are," he said. She raised her eyebrows not quite believing what she had just heard. How could he figure out who she was when she couldn't remember? And quickly? She had her doubts. He motioned to a chair that was sitting next to him. She walked over to it and sat.

"I guess I'm off then. Don't be too hard on her," Kakashi said.

"If she's got nothing to hide she'll be fine," Inoichi said. Kakashi nodded and walked out. Two men with odd white masks with red markings walked in and stood next to the door. They looked to her like guards. She wasn't sure why guards were necessary, she was pretty sure she couldn't overtake this Inoichi guy. He seemed pretty strong.

"Shall we start this?" Inoichi asked.

"Ok," she responded.

He noticed the gash on her forehead. "You have no idea where that came from?" he asked and she shook her head. "Alright, well I'll be the one to find out if you are telling the truth or not," he said. She furrowed her brows at his comment. Why would she lie? This guy wasn't even trying to hide that he didn't believe her. What a jerk, she thought to herself. He suddenly put his hand on her forehead which caused her to wince in pain. "That hurts…" she grumbled and glared at him. He didn't acknowledge her words, but instead closed his eyes. No sooner had he closed his eyes and everything went black.

When she woke back up she was light headed. "What happened?" she asked wondering if she had passed out. Inoichi removed his hand from her forehead and she looked up at him. The look on his face had softened a little; he looked a little less irritating. She thought she could detect some concern in his eyes too.

"Turns out you were telling the truth," he said. "You can't remember a thing. In fact, your memories are completely gone; I've never seen anything like it. You aren't under some form of genjutsu either, which is good news for you. However, I'm not sure you'll ever regain your memories," he continued.

She was confused. What had happened that made him trust her all of a sudden? "How do you know this?" she asked. "And why do you think I'll never get my memories back? You're telling me I've got to start all over at 17 years old in a place I have no connection to and with nobody who knows me?" she asked, her voice raising. She had thought about what would happen if her memories never came back, but that didn't mean she was prepared to hear that it was actually a possibility.

"I have an ability that allows me to get into your mind and look around," he answered. Is that why she passed out? He was in her mind? "In normal cases of amnesia, I'm able to see the person's past thoughts and memories. If you were under a case of genjutsu, there would have been barriers put up around your mind. As far as I can tell, your mind is blank slate. You've got the last 24 hours or so, and that's it. There was no indication of genjutsu either. I've never seen that before…" he said as his voice trailed off. His facial expression had turned serious again.

"Does this mean I can go?" she asked him. He nodded, turned around and started walking off. What a strange man, she thought. She got up out of the chair and walked towards the door she had entered through. The men in the masks held the door open for her and she left.

Once outside, she decided she would wander the city a bit before going back to Kakashi's home. She had brought her money that the Hokage gave her along, so maybe she would find some food or other things to buy. She started wandering through the city looking into the different shops. People waved and/or smiled at her as she walked through and she smiled back. Some children ran in front of her and she almost ran into them and fell. One of the kids was a little girl with pink hair, and the other a blonde little girl. They were cute kids, she thought as she watched them run off.

She then noticed a little boy with spiky blonde hair sitting all by himself on a swing. She could tell by his posture that something was wrong. Everybody else seemed to either be ignoring him or glaring him as they walked by him, so she decided to go say hello. "Hi there," she said to the little boy. He jumped at the sound of her voice and turned his head to look at her as he wiped hears away. "What's wrong?" she asked him. What was wrong with these people? How could they just walk by this little boy as he was crying? He was a cute little boy, couldn't have been older than four or five. He did appear to have whiskers like a cat would have, which seemed a little odd to her.

His eyes were questioning of her, and she wondered why a boy as young as he was would have such a distrustful look on his face. "I'm Ayame. What's your name?" she asked, hoping to draw some sort of response from him. She noticed others looking at her funny as she talked to the boy. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki," he responded. She smiled at him and he smiled back with a big cheesy smile.

"It's nice to meet you, Naruto Uzumaki," she said. The looks on people's faces as they walked by turned to glares as they watched her talking to the little boy. She shot glares straight back at them wondering what it was about this little boy that drew this reaction out of people. He was too young to have done something that deserved this she thought. And where were his parents in all of this? Did they know that their child was getting treated like this?

"They always look at me like that…" he said as he looked down at his feet. She felt anger rise up in her at his words. These people that had been smiling and waving at her just moments earlier were now glaring at her for talking to this little boy. She'd have to ask Kakashi about this later, surely he knew why Naruto was being treated like this. "Well, I won't look at you like that," she said to him. She could tell when he looked back to her that he was holding back tears. She squatted down so that she was at eye level with him and gave him a hug. He stiffened up a little, but then hugged her back.

"I'm going to be the Hokage," she heard him say and she pulled back from the hug. His big cheesy smile was back and she couldn't help but smile back. "I can't wait to see that," she said not sure how one became the Hokage. She noticed he was no longer looking at her but behind her. She turned her head to see a man in a strange mask like the ones guarding the door with Inoichi about 10 feet behind her. The man motioned for her to follow him. "I've got to go, Naruto. I'm sure I'll see you later, ok?" she said and he nodded.

"What do you want?" she asked the masked man, but he didn't answer. "Who are you?" she then asked, but still no answer. She made a face at the back of his head, but he didn't notice. These guys were too serious. She followed him in silence since he obviously wasn't into talking with her. He walked into the building where the Hokage's office was and she followed him in. When they got to the Hokage's office, the man held the door open for her and motioned for her to enter. She walked in and the door closed behind her.

"Ayame, I heard Inoichi's report on you," the Hokage said. She didn't say anything, curious what he would say. "He says your memory has somehow been completely wiped and that you probably won't regain your memory of who you were. I know that must be hard to hear," he continued. She wasn't sure why he had called for her to tell her what Inoichi had already told her. "You will remain under watch by Kakashi for the time being, in case Inoichi is wrong. You will meet with a tutor, and we will be testing you to see if you have abilities suitable for becoming a kunoichi. Do you have any questions for me?" he asked.

She sure did. They probably weren't the kind of questions he had in mind, but she'd ask anyway. "What's up with the guys in the masks? And do you know who the people here glare at the little blonde boy with the whiskers? He was crying in the park, and people just walked by him. Then they looked at me like I was terrible for talking to him," she finished. The Hokage might not know the little boy. There were probably enough people in the village that he couldn't know everybody, but there were enough people that all seemed to dislike the boy that perhaps it had caught the Hokage's attention.

"The people in the masks are my ANBU, the Black Ops. Kakashi is part of them," he started. "The little boy is an orphan boy with no family around who causes trouble around town. He's quite the little vandal, though I suppose he's just looking for some form of attention," he said. Well, he kind of answered her questions. She hadn't realized that Kakashi was part of the masked group. He must be a really great ninja. Hearing that Naruto was an orphan saddened her. He had no parents or family to take care of him. She felt that there was more to the story than the Hokage was telling her but figured it wasn't her place to question him further.

"There won't be any more of people getting into my mind, will there?" she asked, changing the subject away from Naruto. She wasn't a fan of that; the idea of somebody taking a look at all of her thoughts was creepy. He had probably even seen her noticing that Kakashi was attractive, or when she was looking at her body in the mirror in the bathroom. Had he seen her naked? She felt her face turn a little red at the thought.

"No, that's done," he answered. "If you don't have any further questions, you are free to go. You are to report to the library tomorrow morning. Kakashi will show you how to get there, just ask him to take you there in the morning. I know this is a lot to take in right now, but there's no point in waiting around wasting time. Take your time looking around the village today, and get plenty of rest tonight. You are still recovering from a fairly major injury, after all," he said.

"Yes sir," she said. He went back to doing the paperwork he was doing when she had walked in, so she took that as her queue to leave. She left the office and walked out of the building. It was a lovely sunny day, probably around noon she guessed by the position of the sun. She walked back to the swing where she had met Naruto, but he was no longer there.

She kept walking and eventually found a bench and sat down. She leaned back and closed her eyes tight, thinking about what never getting her memory back might mean for her. Yesterday she had thought of the possibility and had even come to the terms that it might not be a bad thing to just start over here in this village. Whatever or whoever had hurt her and left her for dead was not something she wanted to remember. But what if she had people back where she was from that were looking for her? Did she have a family who would be missing her and worried about her? What about a boyfriend or friends? They should be looking for her. Maybe she should leave this village she thought for a moment, but then realized that she would have no idea where to go. She had no idea where she was from and would have to go from village to village in order to see if anybody recognized. There was also the possibility she was running from her home village. Perhaps things were awful there and whoever had hurt her was from her village or even her family.

She felt tears run down her cheeks and wiped them away with her hand. She wasn't upset so much as she was frustrated. She had no idea of any detail of her life before she woke up in the hospital the day before. The Hokage seemed like a nice man and very wise, but she could tell even through the masks that the ANBU people didn't trust her. She thought even Kakashi cared about her, but he was so hard to read. For all she knew, he might regret bringing her to the village.

She opened her eyes and looked up at the sky. Her mind was reeling with what ifs. She knew that thinking like that wasn't helpful, but she couldn't stop the thoughts from forming. Maybe Inoichi was wrong, maybe she would remember who she was in time… But he might be right too. She was glad that there weren't many people around this particular spot; she knew she must look like an idiot sitting on a bench crying. She watched some birds flying overhead for a little and closed her eyes again. Her head was throbbing and crying wasn't helping.

The next thing she knew she woke up startled by people yelling down by the shops. She must have fallen asleep while trying desperately to remember who she was. Her head was still throbbing as her vision came to focus. She looked at the position of the sun and knew it was now much later in the afternoon. She must have slept for quite awhile. She then got up and started heading towards the noise and could see that somebody had vandalized the outside of the shops with colorful paint. She followed their glares to see Naruto standing there laughing with a bucket of paint and a paint bush sitting on the ground at his feet.

"Naruto!" she said angrily. He looked at her in surprise. She couldn't tell if the surprise on his face was from not expecting to see her or if he was surprised she was talking to him again. She walked over to him and grabbed his wrist, "We are going to clean this up right now," she said in a controlled tone. He looked down at the ground and pouted.

She turned to the shop keepers. "Don't worry, I'll make sure he cleans this all up," she said with as polite smile as she could fake. They all either continued to glare at Naruto as they walked back to their shops or rolled their eyes at him. The poor kid had no parents to raise him; couldn't they give him a break? If they were nicer to him he might not do things like this. She stuck her tongue out at them as their backs were turned to her and Naruto. One of the shop keepers came back out and dropped a bucket with water and soap in it and some rags at their feet. The shop keeper didn't say another word and stomped back into the shop. Ayame rolled her eyes at the shop keeper's actions.

"You know it's not okay to vandalize other people's property, right Naruto?" she asked him, but he didn't respond. She let go of his wrist and grabbed one of the rags and plunged it into the soapy water. She tossed the other rag at him and he caught it. "Come on, you have to help me clean up this mess," she said. The poor kid had nobody who cared about him, so she decided right then and there that she would make sure to care about him. He no longer would be alone; he would have her. She was alone here too; she had no family and no past. "Naruto, help me wash this off. You made the mess, I'm not going to clean it up by myself. Don't make me ask you again," she said.

"It doesn't matter if I clean it up or not..." he said quietly as he soaked the rag in the water. "They'll still look at me the same," he said. There had to be more to the story than the Hokage had told her about Naruto. Maybe she could get more information out of Kakashi about Naruto. "Well Naruto," she started, "I don't look at you like they do, do I?" He looked at her and shook his head no. "So help me clean this up," she said again. He nodded reluctantly and took his soapy rag and walked over to the side of the shop and started scrubbing. She stood next to him and helped him clean up his mess. It took about an hour to clean up everything, but they finally finished.

"I think we've got it all," she said and tossed the rag into the bucket of water. "It's not so funny to vandalize other people's property when you have to clean it up, is it?" she asked him as he shook his head no. She squatted down to be on eye level with the little boy, "I'm alone here too. I know it's not fun to feel lonely." He was still pouting so she leaned forward and kissed his little forehead.

"What?! What are you doing? Yuck!" he said and wiped at his forehead. She laughed at his reaction. "That's gross," he said and made a face at her. She stood back up while still laughing at him. "You're an okay kid, Naruto," she said with a smile. He grinned at her compliment and she laughed at how quickly his demeanor changed from disgusted to happy. "I'm gonna go home now I think... " she said to him and lifted up her bangs and showed him the gash on her forehead. His eyes got big as he pointed at her wound. "I'm tired and my head hurts a lot," she said.

"How'd that happen?!" he asked in a loud voice, still pointing at her forehead.

"I have no idea," she answered. "I'll see you later, okay?" she asked and he nodded. She turned around and started walking away. She stopped into a shop and bought some loose cloth pants to sleep in; she realized this morning when she woke up still in the clothes she had worn the day before that she had neglected to by clothes for sleeping in. She also stopped into a shop that was selling rice and dumplings and bought some food to go. With everything she could think of that she needed, she headed back to Kakashi's home. She made a few wrong turns along the way, but she got there.

She got the front door and realized she didn't have a key. "Crap..." she grumbled and tried the front door. It was unlocked though, so she walked in. She sat down at the kitchen table and ate her food, wishing her head would stop hurting. At lease her mind had slowed down a little... Naruto had been a good distraction from the news that she probably wouldn't get her memory back.

After she had finished eating, she went and took a hot shower. She then changed into the pajama pants and a tank top, turned out the lights and plopped down on the bed. She hadn't paid attention to what time it was, though she was sure it was probably too early to call it a night, but she was exhausted. She was aware that she hadn't done much of anything to be so tired, she even took a nap earlier. But, she was tired. No sooner had she closed her eyes, she fell into a deep sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning when Ayame woke up her head finally felt a little better. It was still throbbing, but to a lesser degree. She sat up in bed and looked out the window; it was another beautiful day outside. She put her feet on the floor and sat there for a moment. She was supposed to tell Kakashi to take her to the library today… She was curious about what they would be teaching her. She stood up and walked out of her room and into the kitchen/living room area. She saw Kakashi was relaxing on the couch reading a book.

"Good morning!" she said cheerfully. Kakashi looked up at her and set his book down. "I heard that Inoichi doesn't think your memory will ever come back," he said. When she hesitated to respomd he continued, "He might be wrong though. But, if it doesn't come back what will you do?"

"I'll probably stay in this village, for a while at least," she responded. "It's not like I'd know where else to go. I have no idea where I'm from," she said. He nodded in agreement to what she was saying. "So… The Hokage said you're part of his black ops program?" she asked and he nodded again. "What do you have to do? Do you have to wear a mask too?" she asked.

"Yes, I wear a mask. It keeps my identity a secret from people who don't need to know who I am," he answered. "I do whatever the Hokage asks me to do. My job is to make sure that the village stays safe, at any cost," he said plainly. She supposed the mask thing made sense if he was really having to deal with enemies that wanted to cause harm to the village. He must be awfully strong, she thought to herself. "I've been part of the Hokage's ANBU since I was 14. I got into the organization much earlier than most. It's kind of a dark job..." he said as his voice trailed off.

She walked over to the couch and sat next to him. "You must be very strong," she said, but he didn't really react to her. "Do you know the little blonde boy, Naruto? I asked the Hokage why everybody doesn't like him, and he just told me that Naruto was an orphan that caused trouble... I can't imagine a boy that young can cause that much trouble to where everybody in the village avoids and dislikes him..." she said, hoping for more information. Knowing he was all alone, she felt a connection to Naruto. She was sure their stories were very different; she had no idea if her parents were still alive or not or if people from the village she came from liked her or not. She felt a connection to him all the same, she didn't know anybody here and had no history with these people.

Kakashi shrugged at her question. "I don't know a whole lot about the boy. I don't like or dislike him; I don't know him," he said. She sighed at his response as it wasn't what she was wanting to hear. She was about to tell him that she was supposed to ask him to take her to the library today when he continued on with his thoughts about the little boy. "I don't know how much I should be telling you because you are still a stranger to this village... But if you're going to take an interest in the boy, you might as well be a little informed. He is the Jinchuriki, he houses the Nine Tails fox demon. The Nine Tails wreaked havoc on the village and the Fourth Hokage sealed the Nine Tails in the boy the day he was born. The villagers see him as a reminder of that day and all the destruction and death," he explained.

"That's not fair!" she said sounding more angry than she had intended. "It's not his fault he's got some demon in him! He had no choice in the matter if somebody else chose to seal it in him! How can they be so mean to a little boy for something that he had no choice in?" she asked. She wasn't entirely sure what a Nine Tails demon fox was, but it must have been bad if it was causing death and destruction to the village. Even so, it wasn't Naruto's fault. He should be a hero for housing the demon in him so that it couldn't cause more damage, she thought.

"I didn't say it was fair," Kakashi said. "It's just the way it is. He doesn't know anything about the Nine Tails being sealed in him, nor does he know that the Fourth Hokage was his father," he explained. Ayame raised her eyebrows; Naruto is the kid of the Fourth Hokage? That seemed puzzling to her, if there was a Fourth Hokage, why was the Third in charge? "The Fourth Hokage died to save the village. Sealing the Nine Tails into his kid killed him," Kakashi continued, he must have noticed the confusion on her face. "After the Fourth died, the Third stepped back in for him," he explained to her.

She looked down at her hands that were resting in her lap. This poor kid was the son of a Hokage, housed a demon fox in his body, was hated by the village for that, and he knew nothing about any of that. "Don't let him know any of that though, it was decided that was what was best for him," Kakashi said and she looked over to him. She could see a softness in his face that wasn't there before. "What are you supposed to be doing today?" he asked changing the subject.

"Oh, you're supposed to take me to the library," she responded. "I should probably shower and get ready," she said. He nodded in agreement so she stood up and walked to the bathroom. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and there was still no recognition. How does somebody forget what they look like? She decided she was pretty enough, if only her hair wasn't so unruly. She took a quick shower and stepped out. She towel dried her hair, wrapped the towel around herself, and walked to her room to get dressed. She threw on khaki pants and her navy tank top, and put her hair into a ponytail. She walked out of the room and back to the living room. She quickly ate some yogurt and was ready to go. Her shoes were sitting by the front door so she walked over there and put them on. Kakashi was already waiting outside for her.

"Here, this is for you," he said while holding out a key. "If I had remembered to lock the door yesterday you would have been stuck outside for quite awhile," he said as he dropped the key in her hand. She stuck the key in her pants pocket and they started walking for the library. "If you want..." Kakashi said as they were walking, "I can help teach you a few things to see if you have potential to become a ninja." She looked over to him to see if he was serious or not, though she couldn't tell. The expression on his face hadn't changed. "On days that I'm home early enough, we can practice some things. Or perhaps before you go to the library to learn whatever they're wanting to teach you, if you're willing to get up earlier. You should buy an alarm clock," he said. He actually seemed serious she decided.

"I would like that a lot, Kakashi," she answered with a smile. He nodded at her response. She was kind of excited to have him teach her as it was obvious he was a very strong shinobi. She realized for the first time in the past three days she was actually looking forward to something. "I'll buy an alarm clock today," she said. "It would probably be easier to train in the mornings than to wait to for you to get back from work since that doesn't seem to be a consistent time," she said.

When they got to the library they walked in and she followed him to what looked like a reception desk. "This is Ayame, she's supposed to meet somebody here to tutor her," he explained and the girl nodded. She walked off and came back with a brown haired middle aged woman. "This is Misaki, she'll be your teacher," the girl said. The woman had happy looking blue eyes and her brown hair was pulled back into a bun. Kakashi looked over to her, "Ok, I'll be going now then." With that he walked out of the library.

"Come this way," Misaki said and Ayame followed. The arrived at a table that had some books, a notepad and a pencil set neatly on it. "Please, have a seat," she said and Ayame sat down. "I'm going to be teaching you the history of this village. The Third Hokage is under the impression that you don't hold much, if any, knowledge about this village or the past. He has informed me that a head wound has completely wiped your memory. So it is my job to inform you of all the history you will need to know. Shall we start?" she asked and Ayame nodded. This wasn't going to be super fun, but she didn't really have a choice. Misaki pushed the books on the table towards Ayame, "Here. These are for you to take home and study. This notepad and pencil are for you as well; you should be taking notes so that you'll remember. At the end of this, there will be a test to make sure that you were paying attention," she said. What a drag, Ayame thought to herself. She was much more interested in learning how to become a ninja than learning history.

"Shall we begin?" Misaki asked and Ayame nodded. "We'll start with the First Hokage and the history of his clan," she started. Ayame looked down at the notepad and started taking notes as Misaki spoke. She sat there for what seemed like forever taking notes and absorbing information. At some point they were brought some rice balls, dumplings and tea, and Misaki allowed for a 20 minute break to eat. By the time Misaki said that they were done for the day, she was still learning about the First Hokage. She closed up her notebook, grabbed the books, and stood up. "Be back here tomorrow by 9:00am," Misaki said. Ayame nodded and looked to the clock on the wall to see what time it was and it was almost 6:00pm.

She walked out of the library carrying her books and notebook. She walked down one of the streets lined with shops looking for a shop that might sell an alarm clock. "Ayame!" she heard a loud voice yell. She turned around and saw the guy with the big eyebrows walking towards her quickly. "Come hang out with us! We'll even buy your food!" he said and grabbed her wrist to drag her along before she could turn down his offer. He lead her into the BBQ restaurant and to a table that had the same guy and girl that he had been with yesterday when Kakashi was taking her to the Intel people. What was his name again? It was Guy, she remembered.

"Asuma! Kurenai! Look who I found!" he said in a voice that sounded rather proud. Asuma rolled his eyes, "We saw her walk by, we're not surprised that you came back with her... Especially when you announce that you are going to go get Ayame and bring her back before leaving the restaurant." Ayame laughed at Asuma's comment. Guy sat down and motioned to the seat next to him so she sat down and put her books on the floor next to her feet. Guy might be overbearing and obnoxious, but if this group of people were Kakashi's friends perhaps they could be her friends too.

"I'm Kurenai," the girl next to Asuma said. "I don't think we've actually met yet. And this is Asuma," she said with a smile.

"Nice to meet you," she responded, not sure what else to say to her. Guy was still grinning at the fact that she was here in a manner that made her kind of want to hit him. The waitress came and set a cup in front of her for the tea pot that was sitting in the middle of the table. Asuma reached to the teapot and poured some tea in her cup for her. "Thank you," she said awkwardly. She felt very uncomfortable sitting at the table with these people. They all had a past and people and friends who cared about them. They were probably all from this village and this was their home. She had no idea how to interact with these people. Should she tell them that she had no past and didn't even know who she was? How would they respond to that?

"It's ok, we know that you've lost your memory," Asuma said to her. Apparently her face was not hiding what she was thinking because he answered her question before she asked it. She tried to force a smile in his direction feeling all the more awkward. Did the whole village know about her? Or did Kakashi tell them? They did say that they were his friends. "You look stressed out," Kurenai observed. Ayame didn't respond, not sure what to say.

"My father is the Hokage," Asuma said. "He figured we'd run into you at some point because of Kakashi and told me about your situation. The old man doesn't tell me a lot, but I do know that you've lost your memory from some sort of head injury and Inoichi doesn't think it will come back," he said. She looked at Asuma with eyebrows raised. She wouldn't have guessed him to be the Hokage's son; they didn't really look alike. "How's Kakashi doing? We haven't talked to him hardly at all lately," he said.

She shrugged. "This is only the third day that I've been with him. And they've been keeping me busy while he works. I haven't really had a chance to get to know him at all, though he did offer to teach me how to become a ninja," she answered. She took a drink of the tea and looked across the table at Asuma and Kurenai. They seemed like good people; they were much quieter and less obnoxious than Guy.

"That is great! He is an awesome ninja!" Guy said excitedly. "You'll be sure to learn a lot from him! Perhaps we could help too!" he said, his eyes revealing how excited he was at the thought. Asuma shook his head and Kurenai laughed slightly at the boys. "She is still full of youth and will be able to pick it up quick! I just know!" he said. Ayame couldn't tell if this guy was for real or not. Was he seriously this excited about stuff all the time? It didn't seem like he would make a very good ninja... Weren't ninja supposed to be stealthy? She had a hard time imagining him being stealthy at all.

"We'll leave her training to Kakashi," Asuma said. "It'll just get confusing for her to have multiple people telling her how to do things. Kakashi is a very talented guy, he'll be able to train her all on her own," he said. He started to say something when the waitress brought a bunch of BBQ meat to the table and set it down. "Make sure to bring a plate for her," he said and pointed to Ayame. "We'll foot the bill for her plate," he said.

"Thank you," Ayame said. The waitress brought back another plate and they all started eating. The food was delicious and Ayame was glad for the break in conversation. She was definitely glad that they already knew of her situation and that she didn't have to try and explain things she still was wrestling with herself. When the food was gone Asuma, Guy, and Kurenai split the bill three ways and paid.

"Well, I should probably get going. I've got an early day tomorrow," Kurenai said. "I'm glad you could eat with us," she said to Ayame. "We'll definitely need to hang out again," she said. Ayame smiled back at Kurenai glad to have met her. She seemed like a good person and Ayame decided she would need a good female friend. "Let me walk you home," Asuma said and stood up.

"Thank you again," Ayame said to the two of them as they walked off. She remembered she still needed to buy an alarm clock before heading back to Kakashi's house. "I should get going," she said to Guy. "I need to buy an alarm clock and head back," she said. She grabbed the books at her feet and stood up feeling much happier about having Guy pull her in to the restaurant to eat with him and his friends. He wasn't too bad of a guy, he was just obnoxious.

"Ok! I shall see you later," he said as he stood up. She smiled and nodded and the walked out of the restaurant. It was darker outside when she got out and realized she must have been in there longer than she had thought. She went and found an alarm clock and went back to the house. She pulled out a key and opened the door and walked in to see Kakashi was already there. She took off her shoes and walked over to where he was. "You're back later than I thought you'd be," he said.

"I had dinner with Guy, Asuma, and Kurenai," she told him. That seemed to surprise him a bit. "I was going to find an alarm clock after finishing at the library and Guy saw me and dragged me into a restaurant. They even already knew about my amnesia, so I didn't have to worry about whether to explain that or not. They seem like nice people," she said. She looked at him for some sort of response but got none; he wasn't a very easy person to read. "I did buy an alarm clock, so what time do you want to start training me? I have to be at the library every day at 9:00am until I'm done learning history..." she said.

"I'll be up and ready by 5:00am. If you want to start training that early we can, its up to you," he said. 5:00am? That seemed kind of early, but she figured she should just agree to that. If he was going to be generous enough to train her she should agree to his terms. "Okay!" she responded. "I'm going to study a bit and go to bed," she said and walked back to her room. She set the alarm clock on the dresser, set it for 4:45am and plopped onto the bed with one of the books. She read a few chapters and decided that was enough for the night. She changed into clothes to sleep in, turned the lights out, and snuggled up under the blankets on the bed.

The next thing she knew, her alarm was going off and it was 4:45am. She got out of bed and turned the alarm off. She wasn't entirely sure how well this training would go over being so tired, but she'd give it a try. She threw on some clothes and put her hair back into a ponytail. She walked out of the room and found Kakashi in the kitchen. "G'morning," she said sleepily. He tossed a piece of fruit her way and she caught it. As soon as she had finished eating Kakashi walked outside and she followed him after putting on her shoes. They walked for a ways and passed a sign that said training grounds and went a bit farther.

Kakashi stopped and out of nowhere threw a quick kick towards her head. She ducked and glared at him. "What was that for? You could have knocked me out and ended the training before we were able to start!" she growled at him. She was pretty sure she could tell that he was smiling under that mask which angered her.

"You must have at least some sort of training," Kakashi said, "or else my kick would have at least knocked you down. Your instincts are still there, even if you don't remember them. I needed to figure out some way to see where your skills are at, and that seemed like a pretty easy way to see if there was anything there." She felt her anger start fading away at his explanation. She supposed that made sense even it was still annoying to her that he threw a kick at her in the dark without any sort of warning. "Let's figure out if you know how to fight. Taijutsu is an important aspect of being a ninja, so let's get started," he said.

She wasn't sure what to do but wait for him to make the first move, so that's what she did. Sure enough he came at her, this time with a kick to her mid section. She was able to block the kick and grab onto his foot and push him away. She could tell that he was holding back a lot so she decided to go on the offensive. She moved towards him and threw a punch which he caught. "You've had some training before, that's for sure. That punch was a lot harder and faster than I had expected," he said to her. "But you're holding back, I can tell. You won't be able to hurt me, so don't worry about that. Come at me with everything you've got!" he said.

His comments irritated her. How did he know that she couldn't hurt him if she really tried? Besides, she didn't feel like she was holding back. How was he so sure of that? She had no idea what she was doing, though fighting him did feel natural to her. It was like a reflex; she didn't really have to think about any her actions towards him. Getting lost in her thoughts gave Kakashi an opening and he took it. He landed a punch on her left shoulder and she immediately responded by throwing a kick towards his arms trying to get him to back away from her. He jumped back so that her kick didn't land, but she did proceed in getting him away from her a bit.

"Good! You're getting angry," he said. He came towards her closing the gap that she had just created. She started to feel flustered and realized that she needed to stop thinking. She couldn't remember how to fight but her body seemed to know what it was doing. She had obviously learned how to fight before, so perhaps if she stopped thinking about what she should be doing she'd be able to land a punch or kick on him. As he walked towards her he suddenly seemed to disappear and she could feel his presence behind her. How had he moved so fast? She sent her elbow back at him trying to elbow him, but he caught her arm. His grip was tight and she wasn't able to pull her arm away. She struggled to pull her arm away from him to no avail. "Stop trying to get away by struggling, it's not going to happen," he said in a firm voice. "You'll need to find some other way to get free. You're strong. You might not remember how to fight, but your body knows what to do. You've got to trust your instinct and stop thinking," he continued.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath hoping to clear her mind. He was probably right; the more frustrated she got and the more she thought about what she was doing the worse she was going to do. She opened up her eyes, quickly stuck her foot between his ankles, hooked her foot behind his right ankle and kicked his foot out from under him. He let go of her arm and started to fall, but caught himself and did a back handspring to regain his position. "There, that's more what I was wanting to see!" She grinned at what she had just accomplished. The two of them ran at each other and continued to spar for what she guessed was an hour. He was matching her strength as she threw punches and kicks at him. She definitely knew how to fight and she felt pretty proud about it; even if she couldn't remember being a fighter. She could feel her confidence growing.

"Now I want to see what your chakra control is like," he said as he jumped back from her to stop the fight. He walked over to the tree on his left and started walking up it. She felt her eyes grow wide. He walked up to a branch about halfway up the tree and stood upside down on the branch with his arms crossed over his chest. "Can you do this? Or even walk on water?" he asked.

"I don't think I can... How did you do that?" she asked, still amazed that he was standing upside down on the tree branch. "Chakra control," he answered. He jumped down to the ground and stood up straight. "Let's try something a little simpler," he said. He did a few hand signs and a clone of him appeared. "Did you catch those hand signs? Try repeating those and let's see what happens," he instructed. She repeated the signs but nothing happened. Apparently she didn't know how to do this. "You were able to repeat those hand signs without me having to repeat them, which I would guess means that you have some sort of familiarity with them. Do you know what chakra is?" he asked.

"I don't know... The term doesn't really feel familiar, but it doesn't seem unfamiliar either. Sorry, I've got nothing..." she said. She wished that she had a better answer for him. It was irritating that she didn't know the answer; it would be nice if she could just know whether she knew the term or not. It should at least sound familiar to her she thought.

"Chakra is the energy in your body. It is in every cell in your body and blood. You can learn to control it to do thinks like walking up trees or walking on water. Well, those are simple ways to start. Being able to control your chakra will determine whether or not you have the capabilities to become a ninja at all. It seems likely to me that you've had some sort of training in your past, so it probably won't be too difficult to relearn. We should start with getting you to walk on water," he explained. He looked over to a large pond that was off to the left and they started walking there. She stopped at the edge of the pond and he kept on walking. He made it look so easy, she thought to herself.

"You'll build up your chakra in your feet to adhere you to the surface of the water. Once you figure out how to do it, you'll have to get to the point where you can do it without thinking about it," he explained. That seemed a much harder task to her than he was making it out to be, but she figured she'd try. She closed her eyes and started to focus when he interrupted. "Nope, not from there," he said and pointed to a dock. "Go over there. You've got nothing to lose standing at the shallow edge of the pond. Go stand on the dock," he said.

"What?! Why would I do that?" she shouted at him but he just kept pointing to the dock. "That's stupid!" she yelled at him but he didn't seem to care. She stomped over to the dock and walked out. He was watching her and she rolled her eyes at him. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and then exhaled. She focused hard on the feeling of energy in her feet. She took one foot off the dock and decided that it was now or never. She stepped onto the water and fell straight into the cold water. She swam back up to the top of the water and pulled herself up on the dock.

"Do it again," he instructed. She hesitated to do so; that water was cold! "Do you want help training, or not?" he asked. She glared at him, but she did want his help. She closed her eyes again and concentrated on the energy in her feet. She took longer this time to make sure she was more aware of her energy. She stepped out again but still fell into the water. Though this time, she felt something different when she stepped out onto the water. It was almost there, but not quite. She swam back up to the surface yet again and pulled herself up on the dock. She closed her eyes, calmed her breathing, and took her time focusing. Suddenly, somebody was behind her and pushed her into the water. She fell in again, though this time she could actually feel her feet starting to catch on the surface of the water. She swam back to the surface to see Kakashi standing on the dock looking rather amused.

"What was that for?!" she yelled.

"You were taking too long," he replied.

"Ugh! I'm done with this for right now," she said and started swimming for the shoreline rather than getting back on the deck. She got to the point where she could walk out of the water because it was shallow and saw that Kakashi had beat her back to the shoreline. "I just needed a little longer! I would have gotten it that time! I could feel that my feet almost caught the surface of the water that time!" she growled at him.

"You were taking too long. You don't need to think that hard about it, it's about feeling your energy. It's an instinctive thing, just like your taijutsu skills. If your body knows how to do it, thinking won't help. You should ask somebody at the library to find you a book that explains chakra that you can check out. Come on, let's go back home. I need to get to work, and you should probably get ready for your tutoring," he said. She decided he was probably right, just like he had been with the taijutsu. When she let her mind clear and her instincts take over she did much better. She'd never tell him he was right though, she was still mad about him pushing her into the water.

They walked in silence for awhile. Kakashi was looking ahead and Ayame was looking at him. She really didn't know anything about him other than that he had saved her life, that Guy, Asuma, and Kurenai seemed to like him, and that he was a very strong shinobi. She didn't know anything about his past, what he liked and didn't like to do, or why he kept most of his face covered with the mask and headband. She wondered how he'd respond to her questioning about himself and decided to give it a try.

"Kakashi..." she started.

"Yeah?" he asked without looking back to her.

"Why do you cover up your eye covered up with your headband?"

"Learn to stand on the water and I'll tell you."

She decided to accept his challenge. If she was going to stay with him she should know who he was. And if meeting his goals for her in training was how to find out, that seemed like a relatively easy way to get there. It would be much better than trying to pry the information out of him.


	4. Chapter 4

The rest of the day went similarly to how it had yesterday. She got back to the house, showered and got ready for the day. She headed off for the library with her notepad and pencil and found Misaki sitting at the table they had been at yesterday. They picked back up where they had left off, back to learning about the First Hokage and his legacy. He seemed like a pretty darned impressive guy to her. After all, to earn a nickname like the god of shinobi you'd have to be an exceptional ninja. Though for as strong and powerful as he was it still seemed like he was a nice person. How else could someone give somebody like Madara Uchiha as many chances as he did? He really wanted to see the best in the evil Uchiha man. She wished that she could have met the First Hokage.

Lunch time came and went and they were right back into studying. By the time 6:00 came around, Misaki was just finishing up her lesson on the First Hokage and the formation of the Leaf Village. Ayame looked at her notes and saw that she had taken eight pages of notes, no wonder her hand was cramped up. She packed up her notepad and pencil and said thank you to Misaki before heading to the front desk to ask where a book on chakra was.

The girl sitting at the desk looked up at Ayame. "What about chakra are you wanting to read about?" the girl asked. Ayame hadn't thought about that, Kakashi had simply told her to get a book on chakra from the library. "Uhh... Well, Kakashi just told me I needed to get a book that explained it. He's trying to train me..." she said, not really figuring that her answer would help the girl know what she wanted. She stood up and walked to a row of books and Ayame followed. The girl pulled a book from the shelves and gave it to Ayame, "Here. This is on chakra control and manipulation. I'm guessing this is what he was wanting you to learn." The girl went back up to her desk motioning for Ayame to follow, so she did. She checked the book out to Ayame and told her to have it back in two weeks.

"Thank you," Ayame said before leaving the library. She went and found a bench outside, sat down, and started looking through the book. There were many illustrations of the chakra inside a person's body and different patterns of it. Hopefully this book wouldn't be too hard to comprehend and it would help her learn how to control her chakra. She became absorbed in her reading and stopped paying attention to what was going on around her, so it startled her when a little blonde head appeared suddenly over her book.

"What'cha reading?" the blonde boy said and she realized it was Naruto. She pushed his head back from the book and shut it while looking around to see people's reactions to him interrupting her. Now that she knew why they didn't like him it made her all the madder to see how they looked at him. She felt anger welling up in her and did her best to push it back down. "A book about chakra," she answered.

"Chakra? What's that?" he asked.

"It's a kind of energy. I need to learn how to use it to become a ninja."

"A ninja? I'm gonna be a ninja, ya know! I'm gonna be the greatest ninja ever and be Hokage!" he shouted with a grin.

"I can't wait to see you become Hokage someday," she responded. She truly hoped that the boy would have what it took to be Hokage someday and prove to all these people that he was worth caring for and attention. "What have you been up to today, Naruto? You're not causing any trouble again, are you?" she asked him. He made a face at her and sat down on the bench next to her.

"Nobody would play with me..." he said as he glared down at the ground. "So I played by myself at the playground. That's what I did today," he said. She felt her heart break for him. Even the children around here wanted nothing to do with him. Even though she felt a connection to this boy because she was all alone here too, she was starting to make friends. She had Kakashi that she was staying with, so she wasn't truly alone. Guy, Asuma, and Kurenai seemed to want to be friends with her too.

"I'll play with you. I've got a little bit of time before I need to go," she said. His eyes lit up at her comment and he stood up and took off running towards what she assumed would be the playground. She got up with her book and notepad and went after him and sure enough she followed him to a playground. She set her stuff down near a tree as he went and found a ball. "Oh good! Nobody took my ball!" he said as he brought it over to her. "Wanna play catch?" he asked with a large grin. She nodded at him and he threw the ball in her direction. She caught it and tossed it back. "Watch! I can throw harder, ya know!" he exclaimed. He took a few steps back and threw it much harder at her, but it was off aim. She had to run a few steps back and to the left to catch it. "Oops..." he said with a sheepish grin. She tossed the ball back to him with ease and he caught it. "You're not trying," he said, "so go back further and try!" he said and threw it to her; this time his aim was a little better.

She caught the ball and walked back a few meters and threw it to him. She threw the ball a little too hard though and it went over his head. He ran to go get the ball and walked back to where he had been standing. "You're strong..." he said while looking at the ball. "I'm gonna be strong too! Just wait!" he said. His enthusiasm was cute and she couldn't help but smile at the boy. He threw the ball back to her and the two continued to play catch for the next thirty minutes or so.

"I need to go, Naruto," she said after tossing the ball to him; she wanted to go practice standing on water before it got dark. He looked disappointed that she was going, but he didn't argue with her. "I'll see you around, okay Naruto? I had fun playing with you," she said hoping to make him look a little happier, but it didn't seem to work. "Look happier, or I'll kiss your forehead again," she threatened.

"What? Yuck! No!" he said loudly. She laughed and he grinned. He must be a ham, she thought to herself. He always got a huge grin on his face when she laughed at something he said or did. "That's better," she said in response to his smile. She waved bye to him, went and grabbed her book and notepad, and walked off. She jogged over to the pond and walked out on the dock. She set her book and notepad down hoping to put some of the things she had read to use. She closed her eyes, focused on the energy in her feet for a moment and took a step off the dock. She fell straight through the water, swam back to the surface and pulled herself up on the dock.

For a moment she was tempted to try this from the shallow end of the pond, but she had a feeling that Kakashi was right in having her start at the dock. She really didn't have near as much to gain if she knew that she wouldn't get wet by not adhering to the surface and standing on it. Knowing that if she stepped out onto the water and didn't stand on the surface she would get drenched was motivation, or at least that's what she told herself. She continued to step off the dock, fall through and swim back up and try again for awhile.

She was starting to get discouraged, thinking she wouldn't ever get it right. She had no idea what else to try other than just stepping off the dock and hoping. She was concentrating and picturing the energy like the book had suggested. She decided to try one more time, so she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and stepped off the dock. When she didn't feel herself fall through the water she opened her eyes and saw that she was standing on the surface. She let out an excited scream and lost her focus and fell through the water's surface. She swam back up to the top and pulled herself up on the dock and sat on the edge of the dock. She was grinning from ear to ear and suddenly didn't mind that she was soaked and freezing. The sun had set and she had been out here longer than she had planned, but she managed to stand on the surface.

She thought that maybe she should go back to the house, but figured it was already late and it wouldn't really hurt anything if she stayed out a few more tries to see if she could hold it longer and maybe even start walking on the water. She stood back up and tried to recall the feeling and balance she had felt when she stepped out on the water and stood on the surface. She stepped out onto the water and again stood on the surface. She couldn't help but grin at her accomplishment. It was probably a very simple milestone to pass, but she was proud of herself all the same. She decided to try walking and she was able to do so without falling beneath the surface of the pond.

"Good work," a voice said from behind her. She turned her head to see Kakashi standing on the pond behind her. When had he arrived? She hadn't noticed him at all and wondered if he had been watching for long. "I figured I'd find you out here... You got the hang of that pretty quick," he said. "You should keep practicing until you're able to do it without having to think about it. Come on, let's go home. It's late and I'm planning on continuing your training tomorrow morning at 5:00," he continued as he started walking back to the shore. She walked back to the dock to gather her book and notepad, and then followed him having to think about her energy level the entire time. By the time she got back to the shore she realized that she was exhausted.

"So, since I was able to figure out how to stand on the water, are you going to tell me why you cover up your eye with that headband?" she asked as they walked. He pushed his headband up past his eye and opened his eye to reveal a bright red eye and a scar that went down his face. She wasn't sure what she was expecting to see, but that sure wasn't it. He had one black eye and one red eye? How odd, she thought.

"This eye isn't my own eye," he said, "It was a gift from my best friend who was dying. It's a sharingan." She raised her eyebrows at his explanation. It wasn't his own eye? How does that work? She noticed that he started to look incredibly sad as he talked about his eye. He pulled the headband back down over the eye and continued explaining to her. "His name was Obito. He was crushed by an avalanche of rocks when he pushed me out of the way and saved my life. I had just lost use of my eye when I was attacked by a sword. He knew that he was dying and that I'd need a left eye to function as a shinobi, so he had our friend Rin transplant the eye into me. It's the only reminder of him I have," he said.

Poor Kakashi, she thought. How terrible it must be to carry something like that around. "What is a sharingan?" she asked him, hoping her question didn't further upset him. "It's a form of visual jutsu. It is very powerful, though mine has it's limits since it doesn't belong to me and I only have one. Still, it has saved me in many situations. It can put people in genjutsu, and it enables me to copy others' jutsus," he explained to her. She wasn't entirely sure what all of that meant, but it seemed like a rather useful thing.

"Why do you have to keep it covered up?" she asked.

"I can only use my eye or Obito's eye. Usuing the sharingan uses up a lot of chakra, so I only use it when I have to," he said.

"Oh... I'm sorry about your friend. What happened to the other friend you mentioned? Rin?"

"You'll have to reach another training goal."

"Ok..."

They walked in silence the rest of the to the house in silence. Kakashi seemed down and she didn't want to make it worse. She didn't expect such a depressing answer for what seemed like a simple question. They arrived at the house and went inside. Ayame took off her shoes and started walking towards her room. "Goodnight, Kakashi. I'll see you in the morning," she said as he walked towards his room.

"Goodnight," he responded. He walked into his room and shut the door. She could hear him plop down onto the bed and she went into her room. She realized she hadn't eaten anything since lunch but was too tired to go find anything. Her body was exhausted and she felt like she had absolutely no energy. She set her alarm for 4:45 and realized she wouldn't be getting a whole lot of sleep that night. She took off her still soaking wet clothes and put on dry clothes. She took the wet clothes to the bathroom and hung them over the shower. She went back to her room, turned out the lights and fell asleep.

When her alarm went off at 4:45am she was pulled out of a deep sleep. She rubbed her tired eyes and slowly made her way out of bed and turned the alarm off. After changing and pulling her hair back she went out to the kitchen and grabbed some food to eat. Kakashi walked into the kitchen shortly after and the two left the house. They walked out to the training grounds they had gone to the day before and Kakashi walked out onto the pond. She followed him out to the middle of the pond glad that she remembered how to do this after sleeping all night.

"So like I said, you're going to be able to do this without thinking about it. So, to get you to that point we're going to spar out here," he explained. Had she just heard him right? She still had to concentrate on walking and keeping the right chakra balance in her feet. How was he expecting her to fight him out here? "This will force you to learn how to maintain that chakra level without thinking about it if you don't want to get wet. We'll start off slow and then work our way to your limits," he said.

He came at her and she tried to jump back but fell through the water when she landed. Her mind was focused on avoiding him and her chakra balance in her feet got off. She swam up and balanced the chakra in her hands to pull herself up and out of the water. Once she was standing she took defensive stance; she wouldn't be able to fight him at this point but perhaps she'd be able to defend herself. He threw a punch towards her and she tried to block it with her forearms. The punch didn't particularly hurt, but it was strong enough to push her back. This time she was able to stay above the surface of the water as she slid backwards. Before she could regain her stance he disappeared and she felt a punch to her mid back that sent her flying forward face first into the cold water. She again swam to the surface and stood back up. "How is that taking it slow?" she grumbled at him.

"I haven't hurt you, have I? I might be moving fast and catching you off guard, but I'm not hitting to cause damage. I'd call that taking it slow," he responded. It was true, he hadn't hurt her. As they continued to spar, or rather Ayame defended herself as Kakashi was on the offensive. Gradually, she was able to take a more offensive stance and was falling through the water less often. She was able to fall onto the surface of the water and land on her hands, her butt or even her whole body and not fall through. This was actually easier than she had thought it would be.

Suddenly it dawned on her that it was probably much later into the morning that she had realized. She had to be at the library at 9:00, and it was probably right around that time if not after; they had been out here for a long time. Kakashi seemed to be realizing that it was later in the morning as well. "You should probably get going, he said.

"Yeah... Thanks for training me!" she yelled his direction as she ran off. She got to the shore and ran to the house to grab her notebook and pencil and ran to the library. She looked at the clock as she arrived and sure enough it was 9:30. She quickly walked over to the table to find Misaki seated and reading a book. "I'm so sorry!" Ayame said as she sat down.

"Is everything alright?" Misaki asked. "You're a mess. And you're wet," she said.

"Sorry..." Ayame said. "Kakashi and I were training and I lost track of time. I've got down the whole walking on water thing though!" she said. Misaki didn't look very happy with her, but didn't say anything. Ayame opened up her notepad and waited for Misaki to start the lesson. Misaki sighed and picked up her book and began her history lesson. Today they started in on the Second Hokage, Tobirama. Tobirama seemed really cool to Ayame; he was much tougher in personality than the First Hokage had been. He was also very smart. She thought it was interesting how the two brothers were such polar opposites in personality.

Ayame was glad when 6:00pm rolled around so that they could be done studying for the day. She thanked Misaki and walked out of the library planning on going back to the house to shower and do some reading in her book about chakra and perhaps read from the books Misaki had given her. As she walked through the town she ran into Asuma and Kurenai who waved at her and stopped to say hi. "Hey Ayame," Asuma said. She could tell from the looks on their faces that she still looked like a mess even though her clothes and hair had dried. "You look kind of frazzled," Kurenai said trying to sound polite.

"I was training with Kakashi this morning and didn't have time to go shower before I had to go to the library to learn history and whatnot," she said.

"How's the training going?" Asuma asked

"It's good! Kakashi thinks I knew how to fight before I lost my memory. He says I have some natural taijutsu skills. He's been teaching me about chakra control; we spent most of the morning sparring on the pond out in the training grounds," she explained.

Asuma nodded at her in approval. Hopefully her explanation helped explain why she looked like crap. The three stood there talked for a bit, Ayame told them about what she was having to study and a little more about the training that Kakashi was giving her. "Do you want to come hang out with us?" Kurenai offered.

"No thanks, I kind of just want to go back to Kakashi's house and take a shower and change out of these clothes. Definitely another time though," Ayame responded. She really did want to hang out with the two of them, but not only did she look like a mess and need a shower she was also exhausted. She didn't sleep a whole lot the night before, and her training and studying had exhausted her mind and body. "Ok, sounds good," Kurenai said. "Maybe tomorrow? I know Asuma is busy tomorrow evening, so perhaps the two of us can hang out together?" she said and Ayame nodded. That sounded great to her, actually. "Ok, I'll meet you outside the library tomorrow after your studying is done," she said.

"Ok! That sounds good," Ayame said before she walked off. She now had something she was definitely looking forward to for tomorrow. She walked through the village towards the house looking for Naruto along the way, but she didn't come across him. She got to the house, unlocked the door, and went inside. She took off her shoes by the front door and noticed that Kakashi wasn't back yet. She went and threw her notebook down on her bed and headed for the shower. She turned on the water, took off her clothes and hopped into the shower. The hot water felt wonderful as it hit her skin and she could feel her muscles relaxing.

As she was standing in the shower, she realized that she hadn't thought about her amnesia once today. She had been so been so busy with other activities she hadn't even had time to try and remember who she was. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. On one hand, if she wasn't going to get her memory back there really was no point wasting time trying to remember something that would never come back. On the other hand, what if her memories would come back someday and she just gave up trying to remember? She had had a pretty good day though and she was starting to think that perhaps she could make a life in this village. She was already making friends, she had a place to stay for the time being, the leader of the village seemed to be a very good person, and she had found herself caring about Naruto a lot even with as little as she knew about the boy. If nothing else she would have to stay in the village so that he wouldn't feel so alone.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when the water in the shower suddenly ran cold. She quickly reached to turn it off and got out of the shower. She dried herself off with her towel and walked out of the bathroom to her room and noticed Kakashi still hadn't returned. She put on fresh clothes and made herself some dinner. She looked at the clock and saw that it was almost 7:30pm. She felt it was too early to go to bed quite yet, so she went to her room and went to the little desk and started reading her book on history from Misaki. She read the pages Misaki had recommended and then went on to read from the book about chakra. She was definitely more interested in the book about how to control chakra. She read until she could barely keep her eyes open. It was 9:00 now, and Kakashi still wasn't home. She decided she'd set her alarm and if Kakashi wasn't up for training she could just go back to bed or go try to train on her own.

She walked to the dresser, set the alarm for 4:45am, turned the lights out, shut the door most of the way, and then got in bed. Her body was exhausted, as was her mind, but it took awhile for her brain to shut off. Thoughts of the people she had met here and if she could have a happy life here didn't want to leave her mind. Eventually, her mind was too tired for another thought and she fell into a deep sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Later that night, Kakashi walked through the front door after his mission. He could see Ayame's shoes sitting by the front door so he knew she was there, but it didn't seem like she was up. He took off his shoes and walked back towards her room and saw that she had left the door cracked open and the lights were out. He pushed the door open a little and saw that she was asleep on the bed. Her books were still open on the desk and he could see that she had set an alarm for the morning. He pulled the door almost shut again and walked out to the living room and plopped down on the couch.

It was amazing to him to think about the turn his life had just taken by finding her. She had given him a pleasant distraction from thinking about Rin and Obito, which he was thankful for. Thinking of those two always brought him down to a dark place. He couldn't protect either of them when he should have. He had made up his mind that he would protect Ayame, that would be his way of making it up to them.

He closed his eyes and thought about the events that had happened in the past week or so. He had been returning from a mission when he noticed somebody beneath the tree cover that he was jumping through running away from something in a suspicious manner. He jumped down to the forest floor and decided to see what the person was running away from. He walked along until he got to an area where he could see that a struggle had happened. A few trees had some slash marks on them, some shuriken were stuck in the ground and trees, and the grass was all torn up. He noticed some blood at the base of a tree and followed the trail of blood to a bush. There were two feet barely sticking out from under the bush and a shadow from the tree next to the bush made it hard to notice them. He looked through the bush to see an unconscious girl with a bump on her head and a large gash across her forehead that blood was spilling out of.

He pulled her out of the bush as gently as he could manage and wondered whether he should take after the person he had seen running away from the area or not. He decided not to as this girl was going to need immediate medical attention. He had no idea where the girl had come from; he couldn't find any sort of village crest on her clothing to identify her home village. His best option at this point would be to take her back to the Leaf Village and hope that nobody would be too mad at him for bringing an almost dead stranger to the village.

He tore the sleeve of her shirt off and wrapped it around her head to try and stop the bleeding as much as he could. He carefully threw her over his shoulder and took off for the village. He wished he had gotten a better look at the person running away from the scene. He wondered what the girl had done to make that person leave her for dead. He could tell that she had put up a fight against the person, but that was all that he was able to deduce about the situation.

When got to the entrance to the village the shinobi standing watch gave him an odd look and tried to stop him, but he didn't stop. He ran straight to the hospital and got her checked in so that her injury could be dealt with. As soon as that was done, he went to the Hokage's office and informed him of what he had done. The Hokage didn't seem upset that he had brought a stranger to the village like Kakashi had thought would be the case, but he did have questions for Kakashi all the same. Some other members of the ANBU were sent to try and pick up on a trail of the person who had hurt the girl, but the trail had vanished and they weren't able to pick up on it again.

As he sat on the couch with his eyes still closed, he was getting angry thinking about the person who had gotten away. He should have sent Pakkun after the bastard, but the thought didn't occur to him until after the fact. That, and he didn't have any piece of clothing or anything to help Pakkun sniff out the person. He should have summoned Pakkun when he found Ayame and had him go after the person right then and there.

The days between when he dropped Ayame off at the hospital and when she woke up were busy days for him. He still had to go do his missions with the ANBU, but he also felt responsible to be checking in on her. She had lost a lot of blood from the injuries, but the doctors hadn't t thought that too much damage had been caused. Though if she had just been left under the bush she would have surely bled to death. He spent a lot of his off time sitting by her hospital bed while she was unconscious; it was good reading time.

He had definitely been surprised when she woke up and had no memories of who she was. He felt bad for her, but since she was being treated as a threat he couldn't get too attached to her. He thought staying unattached to her would be no problem; it should be an easy enough task. It was proving to be harder than he had thought though. There was no denying that she was a pretty girl, and he was enjoying training her. He was also intrigued by her interest in the Fourth Hokage's kid. She seemed to be connecting with this boy who had no upbringing and was a menace to the village. Perhaps she'd be a good influence on the kid, he thought.

Her training was going well. He hadn't thought she'd pick up on chakra control as quickly as she did. Her taijutsu skills were much above where he had thought they would be, especially where defense was concerned. She was able to instinctively perceive and either dodge or guard against a lot of what he had thrown at her. The person that had hurt her must have strong to have caused her so much damage. After he was satisfied with her chakra control they'd have to start working on ninjutsu. Cloning would be a simple enough place to start, and if she were able to get that down they'd figure out her chakra type and go from there. He appreciated her willingness to learn and her enthusiasm.

He really hoped that she would forget about asking about Rin. He would answer as best as he could, but he'd rather not. Explaining about Obito was hard enough. He was still having nightmares about the two even with the years that had passed. He had accepted it as fact that he'd carry this guilt with him the rest of his life, but it still wasn't easy to deal with. How would Ayame take hearing that he killed his friend? Sure it was an accident, but wouldn't that make any normal person lose trust in him? He was well aware that other members of the ANBU referred to him as the friend killer. He didn't acknowledge it to them, but it hurt him. Instead, he just carried the burden around all on his own. It was his burden to bear.

He glanced over to the clock that was in the kitchen and saw that it was getting late and he should probably go to bed. He figured Ayame would want to do some training before she had to go to the library, so he knew he should go to bed. Unfortunately, his mind was wide awake and thoughts were racing through his head. He had never been good at shutting off his brain so he could sleep though. He decided to at least go lie down in his bed; perhaps that would help him fall asleep.

As he had figured, getting into bed didn't make it so he could fall asleep easier. Oh well, he thought. Since sleep was eluding him he let his thoughts return to Ayame. He wondered what it must be like to a 17-year-old girl who had no idea who she was and was living with a strange in a strange village. He wouldn't want to be in her situation. She couldn't even remember her own name, which he imagined would be extremely frustrating. She had seemed rather upset about Inoichi's opinion that she'd never get her memory back. He figured he'd probably be frustrated with news like that too.

There was more of a fuss about her being in the village than she knew. Behind the scenes, Danzo was not happy about having her in the village. She was a stranger, he was always wary of strangers, and she was being chased by somebody. That immediately drew red flags for Danzo; he figured that if she was a fine and normal person somebody would not have been trying to kill her. Danzo wanted Ayame out of the village, but had settled for Kakashi watching over her every move instead. Thankfully for Ayame, the Third Hokage was a kind man. He didn't want to dump a girl who had absolutely no idea who she was or where she came from on her own outside the village. He knew that wasn't right and was able to come up with a way to let her stay. Kakashi didn't know how that plan would change if she ever got her memory back.

He also wondered how long she would be living with him. Would this be a long term thing or would the Hokage end up putting her up somewhere else? He decided he really didn't mind having her here. He actually felt a little less alone with her around. His mind always went back to the fact that he couldn't really help protect her, even if she lived with him. He was a failure when it came to protecting others, and he knew it. Perhaps it would be better for her to leave; he hadn't been able to protect any or the people he had cared about. His father, Obito, Rin, and Minato Sensei had all died and there wasn't anything he had been able to do to save them. He knew his wanting her around for company was selfish, but he couldn't make himself suggest she go somewhere else. Besides, it had been decided that she would live with him for now by the Hokage. He couldn't argue that decision.

He was really wishing that his brain would shut off. He glanced over to his alarm clock and saw that it was now after midnight. This meant that he'd be getting less than five hours of sleep. It was a good thing that he was used to functioning off little or no sleep. At least not being asleep meant he wasn't having that same nightmare about Rin. He sighed as he realized how scattered his thought process was. He had started off thinking about the events that had led up to Ayame coming to live with him, and he ended up on what a failure he thought he was.

He tried to steer his thoughts back to Ayame and away from himself. Her attitude towards her situation seemed to be improving every day. The first day or two after she had woken up with amnesia she seemed more depressed about everything than he generally was about his life; that was hard to do in his opinion. Her attitude had improved a whole lot, more so than he had thought would happen in less than a week. Perhaps it was because she was being kept so busy between training and studying. Or maybe making friends in Guy, Asuma, and Kurenai was making her feel more at home in the village.

He hadn't actually spent any time with Guy, Asuma, or Kurenai in a long time. It seemed he had spent most of his time avoiding social interactions. They probably didn't even consider him a friend anymore with as long as it had been since they had all hung out. The Hokage had even suggested from time to time that Kakashi take time off and spend time with his friends. He wasn't sure why the Hokage seemed to worry about him. He always did his job and finished his missions. He was healthy and fit. He didn't need time off.

He heard her bedroom door squeak as it opened and then heard the bathroom door shut. He was tempted to say hello to her since he hadn't seen her since training the morning before, but decided against it. He heard the bathroom door open again and her walk back to her room. She had no idea how much observation she was under. He thought it was silly that outsiders were placed under as much scrutiny as they were, but there was nothing he could do about that. She knew that she was being placed under his watch, but she had no idea about all the others watching her moves. The lady who is doing her tutoring a very smart woman who has been trained in reading facial expressions and body language. The woman was to watch all of Ayame's reactions as she was tutoring to see if there was an sort of recognition or reaction to what being taught. Kakashi thought the whole thing was kind of stupid, but Danzo was behind it. There were also member's of Danze's ANBU that were constantly around watching her. Kakashi knew that Danzo was a shady and paranoid person, and he always thought everyone was out to get himself and the village. He was not a pleasant man to be putting it lightly, Kakashi thought.

Kakashi was glad that he was reporting to the Hokage about Ayame rather than Danzo. The thought of having to report to Danzo about Ayame was rather off-putting. The Hokage seemed to genuinely want the best for Ayame and seemed optimistic that she would be able to establish a happy life here in the Leaf Village. When Kakashi had informed the Hokage about Ayame's taijutsu skills and that he thought she had had a good amount of training, Kakashi could see a glimmer of excitement in the old Hokage's eyes. He wasn't sure at the time why the Hokage would be excited and didn't think much more of it. But, now that he couldn't fall asleep and his mind was running, he thought more about the look in the Hokage's eyes. It was probably just that he was a kind man who knew that Ayame was in a terrible situation with no memory and nobody she knew. Or perhaps he just thought that Ayame would make a good Leaf Ninja. It never even occurred to Kakashi that perhaps the Third Hokage had been excited not only for Ayame but for Kakashi as well and that he hoped hanging around Ayame might remove the darkness in Kakashi.

Kakashi felt bad for the fact that he had withheld some information about Ayame from the Hokage. After she had asked the Hokage about Naruto and he didn't give her an answer that satisfied her, the Hokage assumed that she had asked Kakashi about the boy as well. He asked Kakashi if she had asked him about the boy, and Kakashi told him that she did. However, when asked what he said about the boy, Kakashi said he just shrugged her questions off and said he didn't know the boy. That was not entirely a lie; he didn't really answer her a first. He recalled that he had told her he had neither good or bad feelings toward the boy because he didn't know him. He neglected to tell the Hokage that when she seemed disappointed by his answer that he gave her some more information. He'd have to remember to tell Ayame not to let the Hokage, or anybody else for that matter, know that he had given her more information on the boy. If anybody offered her more information about Naruto she should act like it was the first time hearing the news.

Again, he tried to quiet his mind. Even if he wouldn't be getting more than a few hours of sleep, a few hours was better than none... right? He focused on relaxing the muscles in his body hoping that if he had something relaxing to focus his mind on that maybe his brain would slowly relax too. He was tired of thinking. It was only stressing him out. He focused on relaxing the muscles in his feet first, followed by his lower legs, and then his thighs. He worked his way up his body relaxing each muscle until he finally passed out.

The next thing he knew, his alarm was going off and he was startled awake. He rubbed his still tired eyes as he got out of bed. He already knew today was going to be a long day. He went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, showered, and got dressed. He then went to the kitchen and grabbed some food to eat before Ayame got up. His brain and body were tired, but he knew he couldn't show that to Ayame. Even though his mind was still tired, his thoughts were processing more clearly than had been a few hours earlier. They would start off sparing on the pond, and if he was satisfied with her progress then perhaps they'd work on walking up a tree. His resolve had returned and he knew that he would protect her to make up for not being able to protect Rin.

A few minutes later he heard her walking out of her room. He looked over to the hallway and saw her smiling face and couldn't help but smile back at her from under his mask. Her messy hair was pulled back into a ponytail like usual, and he could tell by her tired eyes that she was still waking up. She'd be awake by the time they got to the training grounds though, he was sure. "Good morning," she said with a yawn.

"G'morning," he responded as he stood up. "Let's get going," he said as he walked over to the door, put on his shoes and walked outside to start the day.


	6. Chapter 6

"Good morning!" Ayame said tiredly to Kakashi as she walked out to the living room. She really hoped that she would get used to waking up so early soon; right now she was not a fan of getting up at this time of the morning. She was surprised to see that he looked tired too, as he hadn't looked tired at all the past few mornings. He must have come back home late last night. Perhaps she should suggest they skip training, she thought. She didn't want him to be tired when he went to work later in the day.

"G'morning," he said as he stood up. Despite looking tired, she could tell he was smiling under his mask. She wasn't sure why he would be smiling, but it made the smile on her face grow. She wished he would remove that mask so that she could see his face, but she didn't figure that was something she could ask him at this point. She imagined that his smile was rather cute. "Let's get going," he said as he headed to the door to put on his shoes. She followed him, put her shoes on and they left the house.

As they walked to the training grounds she was feeling confident about how quickly her abilities were growing, or perhaps coming back to her. Kakashi seemed impressed with her abilities, and that made her feel proud of herself. She was sure that her abilities were nowhere near his, but she was fine with that. From what she had gathered, he was extremely skilled. She would make it a goal to catch up to him, even if it seemed like a lofty goal. In her opinion, setting low goals was pointless. If she was going to set a goal for herself, it would be something that would be difficult to obtain. Even if she didn't quite reach the goal she would probably end up farther along than if she had set a low goal. Perhaps she was an ambitious person, she thought. Even with her memories being wiped from her brain, she still had her personality. That realization, that her personality probably hadn't changed, made her happy. That was something about herself that she had retained through all of this. Or at least that was her hope.

"By the way..." he said and pulled her out of her thoughts. "What I told you about Naruto the other day... Don't let on to others that I told you anything about him. Him being the jinchuriki is a secret kept within the village. I shouldn't have told you as much as I did, but I can't change that now. If at some point somebody offers you information about him, act surprised when they tell you. I don't want to get in trouble for spouting off a village secret to a stranger," he said. She nodded in acknowledgment of what he was saying. Kakashi's words made her feel sorry for Naruto all over again. He was a person, not a secret, or a disaster waiting to happen. But since she was a still a stranger she really had no right to put down the village's way of doing things. At least not out loud, she decided.

They got out to the training grounds and Kakashi walked out to the middle of the pond again. "Let's see how much you've retained from yesterday's training," he said as he walked out. She decided to get a head start on him; she'd get back at him for throwing a kick at her the other morning without warning. She ran at him, careful not to be making any noise, and was getting ready to kick his mid back when he ducked down and kicked her feet out from under her. She lost her balance and fell, completely falling through the surface of the pond. The water was cold and it immediately woke her up.

Once she was standing back up on the surface she could tell that he was rather amused with her. "If you had tried that on anybody else, that might have actually worked. I'm a little surprised at how quietly you were able to approach me, honestly. Here, take this," he said as he tossed a kunai knife to her. She caught it and looked at the knife. Holding it seemed very familiar to her, she was sure she had used one of these in her past. "Come at me with the intent to kill," he said and she looked up from the knife back to him. "Don't worry, you won't be able to kill me. But I want to see you at your best and strongest. If you don't come at me with the intent to kill, I won't see that," he said as he took a defensive stance.

His stance informed her that she would have to make the first move. She preferred when he made the first move, though she wasn't sure why. Defense was easier for her than going on the offensive. She found herself thinking too much when she had to go on the offense. "I'm getting bored over here..." he said and she knew that she was taking too long to start. She decided to stop thinking about to just act. She ran at him wielding the kunai knife and he raised up his own to guard against her attacks. He seemed to be blocking her attacks with ease and matching her attack strength. As she fought him, she realized how impressed with this man she really was.

After her initial falling into the pond, she managed to not fall into the pond again. She was gaining more confidence in her attacks and realized that Kakashi was coming back at her with more strength behind his attacks. She guessed that, since he seemed to be matching her abilities, it meant her attacks were becoming stronger. She finally managed to plant her foot right in his gut and land a kick on him. He fell back and did a back-handspring to regain his footing. She couldn't help the large grin on her face. Landing an attack on him felt like reaching a huge milestone to her and she was quite pleased with herself.

She didn't have long to be pleased with herself though. Before she had time to realize what was going on, he seemed to disappear as his movement was too fast for her eyes to see. When he appeared again just inches away from her, she knew she wouldn't be able to block his attack. She would have to dodge the attack instead. An idea popped into her head and she purposefully removed the chakra control she was exerting through her feet and fell through the pond. She looked through the top of the pond and saw Kakashi stop. She swam back up to the surface and pulled herself up. "Didn't want to get wet?" she teased and he shook his head no.

"That was a creative solution, I'll give you that..." he said. "I'm not sure that would work in a real fight though," he finished. He looked over his shoulder at the sunrise that was happening behind him. "If you don't want to be late today, you should probably go home and shower. I don't think you really want to piss off your tutor by being late again today," he said. She nodded; what he said was true. She was still trying to prove she was a good person to the village. She was still a newcomer and a stranger.

"Okay. I'll see you tonight then?" she asked and he nodded. With that she took off running for the house and he went to the other way. He must be headed to work already, she figured. She got to the house, put the kunai knife on her dresser, threw off her wet clothes and hopped in the shower. After her shower she looked in the mirror and lifted up her bangs to look at the gash on her forehead. It was healing in a way that she knew a scar would appear. At least the throbbing in her head was almost all gone now; she was very thankful for that. She then quickly got dressed, grabbed her pencil and notebook, and went off to the library.

As she walked she thought about Kakashi. She was finding herself rather attracted to him and she wasn't sure why. Somehow, even with most of his face covered, he was a handsome man. She realized how odd of a thought it was to find a man who kept his face covered to be attractive, but that didn't stop her from feeling that way. Perhaps it was the air of mystery that surrounded him, or maybe it was that he had rescued her from her death. She respected his strength and skill, so perhaps that had something to do with her attraction to him. She really couldn't put her finger on what was attracting her to him, but there was definitely something there. He probably didn't feel the same way about her though, she decided. He probably saw her as a burden with his having to keep watch over her and having her invade his privacy by living with him.

She got to the library and walked back to the table she'd been at the past few days and found that Misaki wasn't here yet. She sat down and opened up her notebook to a blank page for notes. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair as she waited for Misaki to show up. She wondered how much longer she'd have to learn the history of the village. They had already studied the history of the First Hokage and the building of the village. She knew of the war between the Uchiha and the Senju, and of Madara and the First Hokage's battle. She had also learned about Tobirama, the Second Hokage. So that should leave the Third and Fourth Hokage. She didn't imagine that would take more than a few more days to cover. She hoped that was the case, at least. She wasn't sure what they would have her do when her days weren't being filled with studying though. Perhaps she would get more training, she hoped.

"Good morning. I'm glad to see you're not late today. Or wet, for that matter," she heard Misaki say from behind her. Ayame opened up her eyes and greeted Misaki. They got right into studying and talking about the Third Hokage. Ayame found herself listening a little more intently about the Third Hokage seeing as he was the one who was in charge right now and he was the one letting her stay in the village. She found out he was known as the professor and that he was an exceptionally smart man. He was also a student of the Second Hokage, which Ayame thought was pretty cool. They had their lunch break, and then went back to studying. Eventually Misaki looked up at the clock and closed her books. Ayame looked up to the clock too, and saw that it was 5:30.

"Let's be done a little early tonight," Misaki said. "I've got a few things I need to go do. I'll see you in the morning at 9:00," she said. Ayame nodded and closed her notebook. She was supposed to be meeting Kurenai outside the library, but not until 6:00. So she walked outside the library and sat on a bench. She was people watching as everybody walked by and observing them. She suddenly saw Naruto try to sneak by unnoticed, holding a can of paint and a paint brush. Ayame couldn't help rolling her eyes at the boy's attempt to cause trouble.

"NARUTO!" she said in a stern, loud voice. It surprised him enough that he dropped his paint can and brush. He looked around to see who had called her name and his eyes finally came to her. His face turned red when he realized she had caught him going to make trouble, and he picked up his can and brush and walked over to her.

"Ayame..." he said with a big grin, "I wasn't about to do anything bad, ya know!"

"Liar," she responded and he laughed. "If you go paint the outsides of peoples' shops again, I'll make you clean it up again. Next time I won't help you though, I'll just watch and make sure you get it all," she threatened. He looked down at the ground as scolded him and she instantly felt bad for using such a stern tone with him. While he shouldn't be causing problems for the villagers, she could almost understand why he did. He was attention deprived and they were all terribly mean to him. Them yelling at him was probably the only attention he got throughout the day until she showed up and decided to befriend the boy.

"If you're good tomorrow and don't cause any damage to others' property, maybe I'll buy you dinner," she said, hoping to change his expression. Mentioning dinner definitely did the trick and his face lit up. He set down his paint can and brush to grab her hand and pull her towards someplace with food. "No, not tonight silly boy! Tomorrow night. I have plans tonight with somebody else. I have to study at this library tomorrow, but if you meet me in this spot around this same time I'll take you to dinner," she said. She still had some of the money that the Hokage had given her, so she would buy Naruto dinner with some of that money.

Naruto sighed and pouted when he realized she meant tomorrow, not tonight for dinner. He climbed up on the bench next to her and leaned on her a little. "Why are you nice to me? Nobody else is..." he asked and Ayame's heart melted a bit. A boy his age shouldn't be asking questions like that. A boy his age shouldn't even have to think those kinds of thoughts.

"Well..." she started, "I'm not like everybody else. I saw you sitting all by yourself the other day and thought you might need a friend. You were my first friend in this village," she said. He looked up at her with his eyes wide and she could see tears welling up in his eyes. Seeing him look so happy made her nearly tear up too, but she managed to hold it inside. "I'm not from this village. In fact, I don't know where my home is. I can't remember it. So when I met you, I didn't have any friends here. You looked sad, so I decided you'd be my first friend," she said. That wasn't exactly how it had happened, but she wasn't going to tell him that she went over there out of curiosity and anger at the villagers for treating him so meanly. He didn't need to know that part of the story.

Suddenly he seemed to realize that he had tears in his eyes and looked away from Ayame to rub the tears out of his eyes. "I'm not crying!" he shouted as he continued to wipe the tears from his eyes. "I'm really not, ya know!" he said again as she tried to stifle her laughs. She didn't realized it yet, but this friendship between her and this young boy meant just as much to her as it did to him. Having him to check in on and look after was a reason to stay in this village and to grow roots here. Their bond would only continue to grow over the years. She had, however, realized how much he needed her. She knew she would be there for Naruto when nobody else would be. She'd be there to cheer him on and try and teach him manners since he didn't have parents. She'd even try her best to get the other villagers to accept him, though she didn't expect that to happen quickly.

Ayame then saw Kurenai a ways away walking towards her. "My friend is coming, so I have to go, Naruto. If you are really good tomorrow then you can meet me at this time tomorrow, okay? I'll buy you dinner," she said and immediately he was grinning again. She couldn't help but smile back at him. "I'll see you tomorrow then, right?" she asked.

"Yes! You can buy me ramen!" he said excitedly.

"Ok, it's a plan," she said as she stood up. He jumped off the bench and looked at her for a moment before quickly and awkwardly giving her a hug and running off with his paint can and brush. She watched him run off and decided she was really rather looking forward to taking him to dinner tomorrow. She bet that he had never had somebody take him out to dinner before. Hopefully the people working at whatever restaurant he wanted to get ramen at wouldn't be too terrible towards him.

"Ayame!" she heard Kurenai yell towards her. She looked to the direction Kurenai was walking from and saw the girl was waving and smiling in Ayame's direction. She quickly grabbed her notebook and started walking towards Kurenai. "Ready to go find dinner?" Kurenai asked and Ayame nodded. They walked through the village and came to a restaurant. Ayame followed Kurenai in to the restaurant where the two then followed a waitress to a table.

"How was studying?" Kurenai asked her.

"It was long," Ayame answered with a laugh. "I mean, it's interesting and all learning about the village and different Hokages, but sitting in that library from 9-6 is a long time to do nothing but take notes. Oh well. If I'm going to stay in the village, I should probably know the history, right?"

"Yeah, probably. Do you want to stay in the village, then?"

"I think so... It's not like I have anywhere else to go. And I think I like this village. I'm already meeting people and I think I'm making friends. And Kakashi training me is a lot of fun."

"Speaking of Kakashi... How is living with him? He's kind of anti-social..."

"Oh, it's fine," Ayame answered. "I don't really see him a whole lot outside of training in the morning, though. I'm finding out he's kind of hard to get to know; he seems to be pretty closed off. I kind of wish he would talk at least a little more, but I don't really want to push him. I'm the one invading his space, after all. I don't imagine he really wanted somebody, especially a complete stranger living with him," she finished. She was tempted to tell Kurenai that she thought Kakashi was kind of cute, but decided against it. She really didn't know Kurenai at all yet and she'd be mortified if Kurenai told Asuma or Guy, or if it got around to Kakashi some how. That would make her living situation awkward.

"There's a reason he's closed off, but I don't think he'd appreciate me telling you... Sorry. I'm sure you'll hear about it in time. He is a good guy though, he's just been through a lot. I know we're all hoping that having you there with him will help brighten him up a bit," Kurenai told her. Ayame didn't know why she'd be able to brighten up his mood better than anybody else, but she thought it would be nice if she could. Perhaps the reason that Kakashi found her was not only to save her life, but for her to help him out in some way. She could tell that he seemed to carry the weight of the world on shoulders, she just didn't know why.

The waitress came and took their order and came back with some tea for the two girls. They both said thank you to the waitress and she walked away. They continued to chat about various things. Ayame told Kurenai about her training with Kakashi, her studying, and tried to explain what life without any sense of you are is like. The food came and they ate as Kurenai told Ayame about the missions she was sent on and what it was like to be a full fledged kunoichi. Her stories fascinated Ayame and she knew that she would became a high ranking kunoichi someday.

Ayame went to grab some money to pay for her half, but Kurenai stopped her. "Don't worry about it, I got it," Kurenai said with a smile. Ayame tried to argue and pay for her half, but Kurenai refused. "Seriously, Ayame, it's okay. With as often as I make Asuma buy me dinner, I've saved more than enough money to buy somebody else dinner for once," she said with a laugh. Ayame could see that she wasn't going to win this argument, so she gave in and let Kurenai buy the dinner.

"Thanks, I had a good time talking with you," Ayame said.

"Me too! It seems I always end up hanging out with boys, so it'll be nice to have a girl friend to hang out with," Kurenai responded. Ayame grinned and the two said their goodbyes. She walked back to the house holding her notebook and with a smile on her face. She had a feeling that her and Kurenai would be good friends, or at least she hoped so. She didn't know if she had had any good girl friends where she came from. If she did, she wondered if they were looking for her and missed her.

As she was walking back to the house she saw Kakashi up ahead and ran up to him. "Hi Kakashi," she said and he turned his head to look at her. He looked drained. He must have had a rough day at work, she thought. "How was your day?" she asked him. He sighed and looked back straight ahead of him.

"It was long. But... That's to be expected. Being part of the ANBU is a difficult job," he said. She felt that there was more to the story, but she didn't press him for more. She didn't want to do anything to push him away from her when he had such obvious walls up around him. She wondered what had happened to him in his past to make him so closed off. She had already heard about Obito, and while she imagined that must be hard for him, she had a feeling that there was a lot more.

"So, what's the next training goal you have for me? Before I can ask you another question about you?" she asked.

"You're going to have to walk up a tree that I chose to a height that I chose. We'll start on that tomorrow," he answered.

"Okay! I'm sure it won't take too long to get that down," she said in a cocky tone, hoping to get some sort of reaction to him. It didn't work though, he still looked as worn out and depressed as he had before. "Thanks for training me, by the way," she said. "I know it must be a bother to you, having me around all the time, but I appreciate it a lot. It's given me a goal to focus on rather than trying to remember who I am and getting frustrated when I can't remember. It's really helping my outlook on life at the moment. So thank you," she said. She was tempted to continue on and say what a great guy she thought he was, but she didn't. She couldn't make herself open up and be vulnerable like that.

"You're not a bother," he said. "It's been nice hanging around somebody who isn't part of the ANBU. And I've enjoyed training you. It's a much more positive activity than I generally participate in," he said. The expression on his face, while still tired, was much less depressed looking. She didn't know it, but he was thankful for her just as much as she was thankful for him. He really did need some positivity in his life, and she was just that.

"Oh, well I'm glad to hear I'm not a burden," she said with a smile. Perhaps she could open up to him more if she truly wasn't a burden, but she wasn't going to do so right then. "I'm probably going to try to go to bed shortly after we get back home," he said and brought her out of her thoughts. She noticed his calling the house home to her. He had done that after their training in the morning too. She didn't want to read too much into the word, but the simple change in words made it feel as though he was inviting her to feel more at home there. It was more of a permanent and welcoming word in her mind.

"Okay. You seem kind of tired, so I can't say I'm surprised to hear that. I'll probably study for awhile and then go to bed," she responded. He nodded and they walked the rest of the way home in silence. It was a rather content silence, however. Their conversation had left her feeling happy, and he seemed to be feeling a bit happier as well.

When they got back to the house, they went in, took off their shoes and Kakashi headed straight to the fridge to grab some food and headed off towards his room. "Are you going to be up to training tomorrow morning? If you're too tired, I can go practice things on my own. Oh, and I still have your kunai knife from earlier..." she said. He turned around to look at her and nodded. "Keep the knife, I've got plenty more. And yeah, I'll be fine for training in the morning," he said and walked into his room, shutting the door behind him.

She went to her room and partially shut the door behind her. She tossed her notebook on the desk, sat down at the desk, and pulled out her books from Misaki. She read the pages that Misaki had recommended and then placed the book aside to read her book on chakra control. She absorbed the information as much as she could in one sitting and then closed the book. She then changed into clothes to sleep in, set her alarm, turned out the lights and got into bed.

She wasn't tired yet, it was only 9:00. She knew she should try to sleep though, or waking up at 4:45 wouldn't be easy. She closed her eyes and thoughts of who she might have been before all this flooded her mind. She had no idea, but the guesses were endless. She did know that she had been at least taught how to fight, but that was about it. Was she a nice person? Did she have a big family that was out there looking for her? Did she have many friends? What about a boyfriend? And why had somebody been trying to kill her? She had been feeling better about her situation until she started thinking about these unanswered questions that she still had. If she could avoid thinking about them she was fine. But right now, these unanswered questions were frustrating her to the point of tears. She tried to hold back the tears, but it wasn't working. She felt the warm tears streaming down her cheeks and she decided she'd just let them flow. Perhaps letting the tears come, rather than trying to hold them back, would help her move on.

She flipped around onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow trying to stifle the noises that were coming out. Not that Kakashi would hear her through his shut door, but she didn't want to take a chance. Trying to think about something that would improve her mood, she thought about all the positive things that had happened since she was brought to the village. Well, to start off, her life had been saved. She also had met Kakashi, Naruto, Kurenai, Asuma, and Guy. She still wasn't sold on Guy, though. She was getting trained to be a ninja. She would be able to make a good life in this village, and she knew that. She would just need to focus on the positive things and not the what ifs.

Once the tears stopped, she flipped back over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. She decided to think about training with Kakashi tomorrow and what they would be doing. After crying, she felt more tired. Soon enough, she felt herself slowly drifting off to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

Ayame's alarm went off and woke her up with a startle. She was pulled out of a dream that she really wished hadn't been interrupted. She had been in the middle of a dream where she was living in the leaf village a few years down the road. She was still living with Kakashi and he had become more social. His friends were grateful to her for helping him become a happier person. Kurenai had become her best girl friend, and Naruto was accepted by the village. In her dream, she didn't think about her past. She was happy and focused only on the future. Hopefully this dream would come true. She wanted nothing more than to move on and become a happy, useful person in this village. Hopefully she would be allowed to stay here long term, she thought. Though she couldn't think of a reason not to let her stay. She made her way out of bed and shut off her alarm.

Her head was pounding as she got out of bed and got dressed. She guessed that the headache was the result of crying herself to sleep. She walked out of her room and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. "You ready to go?" she heard Kakashi say from behind her as she finished drinking the water. She set the glass in the sink and nodded as she turned around to face him. He hadn't put his headband on yet and she decided that she wished he didn't have to wear that headband all the time. Even with the scar that went down the left side of his face, he had a very handsome face. She understood that he needed to wear the headband though. He put his headband on and pulled it down over his left eye. She watched him walk to the front door and put on his shoes. "Are you coming?" he asked and snapped her back to reality. Hopefully the look on her face hadn't given away what she had been just thinking.

"Oh, yes, sorry..." she said and went to put her shoes on. The two walked to a different training area that was surrounded by large, old trees and Kakashi took out a kunai knife. He threw it up and it landed in a tree about 50 feet up the tree. He pointed to where the kunai knife landed, "That's how high you have to walk up the tree. Get to that height and you can ask me another question."

She looked up there and nodded. How hard could this be? She was able to master walking on water, which she figured would be harder than walking up a tree. He stepped up onto the tree and walked up to the branch that was right where the kunai knife had dug into the tree and sat down on the branch. He pulled out a book and leaned against the tree. "You'll have to have a much more delicate control of your chakra than you had to have when walking on the water. Releasing too much chakra will cause your foot to dig into the tree and splinter it. Too little chakra and you won't stick to the tree. This will be more tiring than walking on the water. And if you fall, you won't just be falling into water; you'll be falling onto hard ground. So take your time figuring this out. I'll be waiting right here," he said as he opened the book to read.

She stood there for a moment looking at her feet and thinking. She needed less chakra in her feet than for walking on the pond? She would have guessed that she would need more because she was going to be walking against gravity, but apparently not. She focused on the chakra in her feet to get the balance to be where it would need to be to walk on water, and then she made the amount of chakra less. She put her foot up on the tree and tried to step up and fell down onto her butt. "Ouch!" she grumbled as she stood up.

"You used too little chakra," she heard Kakashi say. She looked up at him and saw that he hadn't looked away from his book. She focused again for a moment and tried to adjust the chakra level in her feet. This time, she took a step up an stood on the tree. Trying not to get too excited, she took another step before sliding back to the ground. This actually was a lot harder work than walking on the water had been. Not only did she have to maintain a certain chakra balance in her feet, she also had to have all of her muscles activated to keep her body in an upright position. She hadn't even thought about that being a problem.

She looked up the tree and thought perhaps that if she could try to run up the tree rather than walk that it might be easier for her. She took a few steps back and ran at the tree. This time she was able to get up about five steps before falling back down. She tried again, gaining a few steps. She realized that she should have grabbed that kunai knife Kakashi had given her the day before so that she could mark in the tree how high she got each time. She could feel her pulse increasing in speed, and her body was getting sore, but she knew she had to keep going. She she finally made it to the branch that he was sitting on after having fallen a few times more down the tree. She was sure her butt was bruised form all the falls. Kakashi had already moved over and she sat down. He shut his book and looked over to her. "Good work. I didn't expect you to get up this high in just a few hours. I guess I should have thrown the knife to a higher point in the tree. You still need to work on this skill, you should be able to get up her easily. Really, you should be able to walk up to the top of this tree with ease. We can save that for next time though," he said.

"So... Can I ask you another question?" she asked and he nodded. "What happened to that Rin person that you mentioned the other day? Is she still a kunoichi in this village?" she asked. The expression on his face changed a bit as he looked down at the ground beneath them. She could tell by the look on his face that he wished she hadn't asked that question. She started to take back her question, but he interrupted.

"Rin is dead," he said. He had a very pained look on his face and she instantly felt terrible for asking the question. She started to apologize, but he stopped her. "You didn't know, it's okay. I knew that this would come up eventually. It's my fault she's dead, too... I killed her," he said and his voice trailed off. She tried not to look surprised at his confession. Surely, there must be a reasonable explanation. The pain on his face as he talked about Rin was even greater than when he had told her about Obito and she wished that she could take back the question more than anything.

"I might as well tell you everything now. I think we've got enough time before you have to go to the library," he said. "Rin, Obito and I were part of a three man cell, and our teacher was the Fourth Hokage. I already told you about Obito and how he died. When he died, I promised him that I'd protect Rin with my life. Some time after Obito had died, Rin and I were on a mission when she was kidnapped. I gave chase, but not before they were able to hurt her. When I finally got her back, she felt that she had something inside her. She kept telling me that she couldn't go back to the village, but I knew that I had to get her to safety. If I could just get her to the village, there would be somebody that could help her. She really fought me on that, but all I could think about was getting her somewhere safe. It finally got to a point where I had to deal with the people that were chasing us. I was about to use my chidori to deal with them, but Rin got in the way and ran into it. I killed her... I couldn't keep my promise to Obito..." he said.

She tried to hide her surprise at his story. She hadn't expected to hear any of that. It was obvious to her that he was still carrying a lot of guilt around about this. "I've gained the nickname of the friend-killer in the ANBU. I didn't mean to... I wanted to save her. I had promised Obito to protect her, and I broke that promise," he said. She couldn't stand seeing him look so upset. She had more questions; like what was a chidori? And what was inside of Rin that made her want to get in the way of Kakashi's attack and kill herself? Committing suicide in a way that would cause her friend to carry around this guilt didn't seem okay to her.

Ayame couldn't help herself as she wrapped her arms around Kakashi and gave him a hug. She felt him stiffen up a bit as he looked up from the ground and over to her. "I'm sorry, I wish I hadn't asked. I didn't want to make you upset before your work, and I'm sorry you had to go through that," she said as she pulled her arms back to her side. The look on his face almost seemed confused, though she wasn't sure why.

"Don't be sorry, you had no way of knowing. Like I said, it would have come up eventually anyway. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to go to the Hokage to see about staying somewhere else... Or if you thought I was a terrible person," he said in a quiet voice. She knew right then and there that this was why Kakashi seemed to be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. This poor man was taking the blame for something that wasn't his fault. It sounded like Rin knowingly got in the way, because she thought she couldn't go back to the village. It made her angry at this Rin girl for placing this burden on him, though she knew she couldn't express that to Kakashi. She had a feeling that would only make him angry at her.

"Why would I want to go somewhere else? Or think you're terrible? It seems like it was an accident, wasn't it?" she asked. He was looking back down at the ground again as he nodded. "Accidents happen, especially when you've got a dangerous job. I've learned from my studies at the library that becoming a ninja is a very risky job. Not only are you putting your life on the line, but you're having to watch others around you die. To me, the idea of putting my own life on the line seems a lot less scary than the thought of people that I care about putting their lives on the line. I know I don't know a lot of people here, but I've started to grow attached to a few. Kurenai, Naruto, and you... just to name a few," she said and he looked over to her again with a shocked expression when she mentioned him. He didn't say anything, but he seemed surprised to hear that she cared about him.

"What's that look for? It's only natural that I would see you as a friend. You're the one who saved me and brought me to the village, I've been living at your house, and you've been training me," she said. She looked at him and really wished that he would say what was on his mind. She could tell that he was thinking something, but he wasn't letting those thoughts leave his brain.

Suddenly, he jumped down from the branch and motioned for her to do the same. "Come on, we can keep talking on the way back home," he said up in her direction. She hesitated for a moment before jumping as it was about 50 feet to the ground. That seemed like a long ways down for her to jump. "This jump should be no problem for you. Your fighting skills alone tell me that you can make this jump without injuring yourself. It's all in how you land as to if you will get injured or not," he said.

She decided to stop thinking about it and just jump. If she broke her ankles when she landed she'd just make him take care of her. She jumped and landed a whole lot easier than she had expected. "See? I told you," he said and turned around to walk back to the house. She walked after him, not sure if she should say anything. She didn't want to upset him further before he had to go to work. "I'm glad to hear that you see me as a friend," he said, breaking the silence. "I had a feeling that telling you about Rin would make you feel the opposite way about me."

"Why?" she asked and he just shrugged. His demeanor had changed to be more calm and more like normal. She was curious why he wasn't answering her question; he had avoided the question twice now. Just when she was making some progress in getting to know him he shut down again. She sighed as she realized that there really wasn't anything she could do about it.

"By the way, I won't be home tonight," he said. "The mission that I'm being sent on will be an overnight job. I should be back sometime tomorrow during the day assuming everything goes smoothly. You will be getting tomorrow off and it's been set up for you to spar with Guy at 9am. While he may look and act like an idiot, he's actually very strong. His taijutsu skills are impressive. You two will be sparring for training. If you're up to it after training with him, I might be willing to work on a few things with you."

She couldn't help the annoyed mumble that came out. Guy? Why did it have to be Guy? She found him obnoxious and annoying, and she had a hard time believing he was really that strong. He seemed like a big oaf and nothing more. Kakashi noticed her annoyance and sighed. "Don't judge a book based off its cover," he said. "I am fully aware of how he comes off. But he has worked harder than just about anybody I've ever met to get to where he is at. He is strong," he said.

"If you say so," she responded. "Can I ask what a chidori is? You mentioned that earlier... But I have no idea what that is..." she said, hoping not to upset him again. He stopped walking and turned around. He bent his knees slightly and took a firm stance. He grabbed onto one of his arms in a way that seemed to be bracing himself. Suddenly there was electricity surrounding his hand and a screeching noise that sounded like fields of birds screaming out. She could feel her eyes grow wide as she looked at the electricity emitting from his hand. The electricity stopped and he stood back up straight, "That's a chidori. It's an original jutsu that I developed. It enables me to move at the speed of lightning and is a very powerful move," he explained. She looked at him in awe as he turned back around and continued walking towards the house. She stood there for a few moments longer realizing the strength of the man in front of her and felt her attraction towards him grow.

"Aren't you coming?" he said back to her while keeping his gaze straight ahead. She jogged up to his side and continued to walk with him. "Can you teach me how to do that?" she asked and he shook his head no. She was about to ask him why, but he answered before she could say anything. "It causes the user to move at such a fast pace that without my sharingan I wouldn't be able to use it either. It has one destructive focal point that leaves the user completely open to the attacks of others. If it wasn't for my sharingan, I wouldn't be able to see other peoples' attacks and I wouldn't be able to use it. Besides, I don't know what chakra type you have. It won't necessarily be lightning like mine," he said.

"Chakra type?" she asked.

"Yeah. Everybody has a chakra type that they have a natural affinity for, on rare occasions people are born more than one. Mine, is lightening. I can perform jutsu that are from other types, but they aren't as strong. The five types are lightening, fire, wind, earth, and water. We'll figure out yours later," he explained. She thought lightening seemed cool, and she hoped that would be her type. The one she really hoped against was earth; that seemed boring to her.

They got to the house and walked in. Ayame looked over to the clock and saw that it was only 8:15, so she still had 45 minutes until she had to be at the library. She went straight to the fridge and grabbed some yogurt as Kakashi walked to the bathroom to shower. She heard the water for the shower start as she sat down at the table to eat breakfast. She thought again about the chidori that Kakashi had shown her and still thought it was super cool. She was curious if she knew that things like that were possible before she was attacked and her memory was taken from her. Was she able to do a jutsu that cool before? Did she know what her chakra type was before? She supposed it didn't really matter now, because she had no idea anymore what type her chakra was. Hopefully she'd find out soon.

After she finished her yogurt she put her dish in the sink and went to walk to her room. She turned the corner to the hall right as Kakashi was coming at the bathroom and couldn't help but stare for a moment. He had on his pants, but no shirt or mask on. He was holding a towel up and drying his face as he walked to his room, but she was able to see more of his face than she had seen previously. She couldn't help but notice the toned muscles in his chest, abs, back, and arms. It was a wonder to her that this man was still single. Realizing she was staring she looked towards her room and walked in there. She wasn't sure if he had seen that she was staring; the towel had been covering part of his face after all.

She sat down along the edge of the bed and looked out the window; it was going to be a nice spring day. She assumed it was spring at least. She hadn't asked anybody what time of the year it was or what month it was. She realized that she wasn't even sure what day of the week it was. When she heard Kakashi walk out of his room she stood back up and walked out of her room. "What day is it?" she asked.

"Saturday," he responded.

"Oh. What's the date?"

"It's April 22nd. You haven't asked anybody up until now what day it was?" he asked with a slightly surprised look on his face. She laughed a little and felt embarrassed. She wasn't sure why it hadn't dawned on her to ask what day it was before now. She had figured out it was spring time by the flowers blooming and the length of the days, but she hadn't known anything else.

"Uhh.. Well, thanks," she said as she went into the bathroom and shut the door behind herself. She looked in the mirror and pulled up her bangs to again examine the wound on her head. She was glad it was healing even though there would be a scar left behind. She quickly brushed her teeth and jumped in the shower. After showering, she wrapped a towel around her body and walked out of the bathroom to her room. She got dressed, grabbed her notebook and pencil, and her book on chakra. Perhaps tonight she'd read from the book and learn how to do something that Kakashi hadn't taught her. She'd surprise him tomorrow with a new trick. She walked out of her bedroom while she was fumbling with her hair tie to pull her hair back.

"Why do you always pull your hair back?" Kakashi asked and she she shrugged. She finished messing with her hair and walked over to the front door to put on her shoes. "It's a big, thick mess. It's easier to manage if I just pull it back. It looks better too," she responded. He didn't say anything in response to what she said. Instead, he looked at her hair for a moment longer and walked over to where she was to put his shoes on as well. The two left the house and started walking towards town.

"I'll walk with you to the library," he said.

"Thanks," she responded with a smile. She decided that he seemed to be warming up to her. They got to town and started walking towards the library, but they were stopped by Naruto on the way. "Hey, Naruto," she said cheerfully. He grinned up at her before noticing that she was walking with somebody. He looked over to Kakashi and seemed surprised that Kakashi wasn't looking at him in a hateful manner, but instead with the same bored expression he looks at everyone with.

"I'm going to be good all day, ya know!" he said in a loud voice. "That way you have to take me to get ramen!" he said with a big grin. She squatted down to be eye level with him and ruffled his blonde hair with hand. "You promise you're going to be good today?" she asked and he nodded enthusiastically. "Good. So you meet me on the bench outside the library tonight after I'm done studying, okay?" she asked and he nodded. "I've got to get going now, though. I need to get to the library," she said. He nodded again with a big grin before turning to run off.

"You're taking him to dinner?" Kakashi asked and she nodded as they walked Naruto run off. "Well, I suppose it's probably good for him that you came to this village. You're probably the first person he's met that is giving him positive attention. He should be around the age that he'll be starting the ninja academy soon. I can't imagine that will be easy for him. He'll need help and support to make it through," he said. She had a feeling that he was speaking his thoughts out loud more so than talking to her.

"Well, I'll be his support system. I'll make sure he gets through," she said. He looked over at her in a way that she thought he looked almost happy to hear that. Though he wouldn't admit it, she had a feeling that he really did want the best for Naruto. Kakashi seemed to have a hard time forming an attachment to others, though she was starting to understand his reasons for being so distant. Still, she could sense that he was glad that she was looking out for his sensei's kid.

They continued walking until they reached the library. She turned to him and told him thanks for walking with her and goodbye. He said goodbye as well before walking off. She watched him walk away and then went into the library. She went and found her usual seat and dropped her things on the table before sitting. Misaki came walking around the corner and sat down across from her. They started right into the tutoring session, though Ayame found herself having a hard time focusing. Her mind was stuck on Kakashi's story of Rin. Her heart broke for him every time she pictured the look on his face when he was talking about her. Perhaps, now that she knew the story, she'd be able to get more out of Kurenai about him.

"You're distracted," Misaki observed about Ayame while they were on their lunch break. Ayame blinked as she was pulled out of her thoughts and shrugged. She didn't really want to tell Misaki about what she was thinking about. "You don't have to tell me what's distracting you, but I'd appreciate it if you could push it out of your mind until after we're done studying. You can think about whatever you want then. By the way, you get tomorrow off. Come Monday, you will be tested on what you've learned so far. After that, we will start covering things that would be covered in the ninja academy. I have been informed that you are interested in becoming a ninja and that Kakashi thinks that you had a good amount of training before your memory was taken from you. I know you've been reading a book on chakra control, and that Kakashi has been teaching you things. But I'll have to figure out what I still need to teach you. There will be some field training with the next set of studying, but we will still be meeting here in the library," Misaki explained. "Oh, and you are to report to the training grounds by the pond tomorrow at 9am for some training," she finished.

Ayame nodded in response to what Misaki had told her. She was excited to be almost done with history and move onto things more to do with becoming a ninja. Not to mention that field training would mean that she wouldn't have to sit still in the library from 9am-6pm everyday. That really excited her. Hopefully this didn't mean that Misaki was taking over her training from Kakashi. Her favorite part of the day was getting to train with him. They got back to studying, and finally 6:00 rolled around. Misaki stood up and gathered up her belongings. "I'll see you Monday at 9:00. Be ready for that test," she said and walked off. Ayame picked up her things and walked out of the library.

"I have been waiting for you!" she heard Naruto yell and she looked over to see him waiting on the bench just like she had told him to. He got off the bench and ran over to her. He grabbed onto her hand and started pulling her in the direction of where he wanted to go eat at. He pulled her over to the Ichiraku Ramen restaurant and pulled her inside. "Here! This is what I want!" he said excitedly

She put her books down on the ground by one of the stools and took a seat. Naruto climbed up on the stool next to her as a man walked out to greet them. "Did you find a girlfriend, Naruto?" the man asked with a wink and Naruto stuck his tongue out at the man.

"What? No way! She's just my friend! She's buying me dinner tonight!" Naruto said in a rather loud voice. The man looked over to Ayame and smiled. "Welcome to my restaurant! My name is Teuchi," he said. Before she could respond Naruto shouted out what he wanted to eat. The man nodded and looked over at her, "What would you like to eat?" he asked.

"Uhh... I'll just have what Naruto is having," she said as the man started to cook.

"Who was that guy you were with today?" Naruto asked.

"He's my friend. I'm staying at his house right now, and he's training me to be a ninja," she answered.

"Is he your boyfriend?"

"Nope. Just my friend. Just like you're my friend," she explained. Teuchi brought them their food and set it on the bar in front of them. Ayame took a bite of the food and it was delicious. Naruto had made a good decision about where to eat dinner at. Not to mention, the guy working at the restaurant seemed to like Naruto and paid attention to him. He smiled at Naruto and didn't once look at him with hate in his eyes. After they finished eating, Naruto looked as though he was about to fall asleep because he was so full. "You probably need to go home and sleep now," she said with a laugh and he nodded.

"Thanks for dinner, Ayame," he said with a smile. She couldn't help but feel that she was lucky to have met this boy. While he was obnoxious and troublesome, he was also caring and a good kid. Not to mention, she thought he was adorable with his big blue eyes and messy blonde hair. If only the other villagers saw what she saw in him.

"You're welcome, Naruto. Maybe I'll run into you tomorrow. Do you want me to walk you back to your house?" she asked. He seemed to think for a moment and then shook his head. "Nope! I can walk there myself. Bye Ayame!" he said as he hopped down from the stool. He waved and ran off towards what she assumed was his house. She paid for the dinner and left the restaurant with her books. She walked over to where she and Kakashi had been training this morning and found the tree that still had the kunai knife still stuck in it. She set her stuff down her notebook and pencil and kept her chakra book as she ran up the tree. Getting up to the branch she and Kakashi had talked on earlier was easier than she had thought. She must have known how to do this before or how else would she have been able to pick it up so quickly? She decided to go up higher and found a branch that was probably 30 feet above the one she was standing on. She ran up to it and sat down with her book. The next chapter in her book was about using your chakra to create a clone.

She read the chapter and jumped down from the tree branch. She landed with a thud, but even jumping from what she guessed was 80 feet up in the air was doable for her. She grinned with the realization that she was strong and her body could withstand an 80 foot jump. She focused on splitting her chakra enough to create a clone and performed the hand signs that were in the book, but nothing happened. She tried again, but still nothing. Determined to get this figured out, she kept trying. She was positive she was doing the hand signals correctly, so now it just meant figuring out how to balance her chakra correctly and make a clone out of it.

The sun had long since gone down and a few hours had passed. Her body was exhausted, but she wasn't going to give up. She had a feeling that she knew how to perform this jutsu; it was just a matter of her body remembering how to do it. Finally, she performed the hand signs and a clone was made. She jumped out of excitement and let out a happy yelp. The clone looked just like her as it stood there, it even had the newly forming scar on her forehead. She released the clone and performed the jutsu again. It worked, and she felt immensely proud of herself. The book had said that most people don't get a clone that looks perfect the first time; it usually takes quite a few tries.

After performing the jutsu a few more times to make sure she had it down, she decided to go back to the house. She was tired, and it was late. She picked up her things and walked back to the house. She went inside and looked at the clock to see it was almost midnight. She locked the door behind her and went to her room. She threw her things on the floor, set her alarm and then plopped down on the bed. She closed her eyes and was asleep instantly. The next thing she knew, her alarm was going off and she was going to have to go and meet Guy to train. She was very curious about how that would go and if he took on a more serious personality when he fought.


End file.
